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MACAULAY'S 
LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 





__ ■>!> LIMITED or 
739-7^1 BKoADWAY.NY, 




•JPyright \m, by o. M. DOMHiiL 



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MACAULAY'S 
LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

WITH 

IVRY, AND THE ARMADA, 



CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY. 



MAOAULAY'S 



Lays of AifciEJNT Rome. 



irsr, AND THE ARMADA. 




CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, 
739 & 741 Broadway, New York. 



r^ y 



MACAULAY'S 

LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

WITH 

IVBY, AND THE ABMABA, 



INTRODUCTION. 

Macaulay was, perhaps, at his best in his four 
"Lays of Ancient Rome." Whatever else he 
wrote required some qualities of mind other than 
those which have made all that he wrote popular. 
The " Lays of Ancient Rome " called into play 
just those powers which he had in perfection, and 
required no more. Powers that will ripen only in 
a meditative mind must remain unripe in the mintl 
of one whose frank and social nature keeps his. 
tongue continually busy. '•' If any one has any- 
thing to say," said Rogers, at one of his breakfasts, 
"let him say it now. Macaulay 's coming." He 
had only what were called flashes of silence, and a 
great part of his thinking must have been what 
came to him in association with the utterance of 
words. When he was not talking, he was chiefly 



i) INTRODUCTION. 

readinpf, for he read very much, and his marvellous 
memory caused what he read to stay by him, good 
or b;id. Most men are able to forget wliat is not 
worth keeping in mind, and may thank Heaven 
that they can. Macaulay, as a young child, went 
with his mother to pay a call, picked up from the 
draAving-room table one of Scott's long poems, then 
just published, read it through while the call 
lasted, and was able to repeat any quantity of 
it to his mother after they got home. He enjoyed 
Scott, and if he had never read Scott's metrical 
romances the style of these " Lays " would have 
shown imitation of some other poet. 

But Macaulay caught the swing of Scott's 
romance measure, made it a little more rhetorical, 
without loss — some might say rather with increase 
— of energy, and brought into play his own power 
of realising in his mind all that he told. In its 
expression of that power lies the great and abiding 
charm of Macaulay's " History. " If it be not whole 
truth it is as much truth as he saw, and he would 



INTRODUOTIOTSr. ?• 

see nothing that blurred the outlines of the picture 
formed in his own mind. Since few truths are so 
simple and single that they can be stated without 
any guard or reservation, the historian who thinks 
much has to convey to his reader many suggestions 
of doubt or hesitation. Macaulay took only one 
view, rejected all that clouded it, accepted all that 
helped to make it more distinct. He was one of 
the kindest and truest of men, intensely human ; 
his one view, whatever it might be, had his own 
life and feeling in it ; and when set forth in his 
own clear English, with short sentences that never 
needed to be lengthened by a qualifying clause — all 
as fact in broad sunshine about which there did not 
hang a cloud of doubt — it was, and is, and always 
will be, delightful reading. It will be thoroughly 
helpful reading too, for any one who knows the 
worth of a clear view boldly and honestly expressed, 
a,n(l is able cautiously to use it as aid to the forma- 
tion of his own opinion. To the untrained reader 
Macaulay, as historian, is a comfort That reader. 



8 INTRODT7CTION. 

when he inquires, wants always upon every question 
a plain Yes or No. He dislikes the confusion of 
doubt. This was disliked also by Macaulay as an 
artist; and the reader who is only bothered by nice 
balancings of thought gets from Macaulay always 
the " plain answer to a plain question," the clear 
unhesitating Yes or No which others might con- 
sider to be no answer to any question that touches 
the complexities of human life. 

But in a ballad there are no complexities. It is 
a tale to be chanted to the people, bound only to 
be bright and lively, with ease in its rhythm, action 
in every line, and through its whole plan a stirring 
incident shown clearly from one pomt of view. It 
is a tale well told, without any pauses for a nice 
adjustment of opinion, but appealing simply and 
directly to a feeling common to us all. It is not 
concerned with the hard facts of history. Its 
immediate business may sometimes be to contra- 
dict them for the comfort of its hearers. 

Thus, in the first of these Lays, the old Roman 



INTKODUCTION. 9 

story of three Romans who saved Rome by keeping 
the bridge over the Tiber against all the force of 
Porsena, was the ingenious softening of a cruel 
fact. It turned a day of deep humiliation into the 
bright semblance of a day of glory. For we learn 
from Tacitus and others that Porsena became 
absolute master of Rome. The Senate of Rome 
paid homage to him with offering of an ivory 
throne, a crown, a sceptre, a triumphal robe ; 
and he forbade the use of iron by the Romans in 
forging weapons or armour. The happy time of 
release from thraldom was long celebrated by a 
custom of opening auctions with a first bid for " the 
goods of Porsena." What did this matter ? The 
songs of tbe j eople were free to suppress a great 
<3efeat, and put in its place the myth of a heroic 
deed ; some small fact usually serving as seed that 
shall grow and blossom out into a noble tale. A 
ballad-maker who should stop the course of a 
popular legend to investigate its origin, and who 
should be dull enough to include that investigation 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

in his song, would deserve to be howled to death 

by the united voices of his countrymen. 

Upon this ground, then, Macaulay was a master. 

TTiR incidents are fully realised. He sees what he 

sings. When Horatius strikes Astur in the face, 

the sword's course is followed *' through teeth, and 

skull, and helmet," till its point stands out a hand- 

' -readth beyond. For its recovery — 

** On Astur's throat Horatius 

Right firmly pressed his heel, 
And thrice and four times tugged amain, 
Ere he wrenched out the steel." 

The pimplicity and vigour of images drawn, like 

(lomer's, from Nature, is again in the truest and 

i>est spirit of the songs that house themselves 

among the people. 

The two pieces which are here appended to 

the " Lays of Ancient Rome " — " Ivry," and '* The 

Armada" — written much earlier, show in less perfect 

form the same easy swing of the music, the same 

tricks of style. Their close blood relationship to 

the " Lays " is seen in every feature, but they have 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

not the same exquisite finish. In the " Lays,' as 
in the earlier pieces of his ballad writing, Macaulay 
liked to paint the stir of battle ; but in " Virginia " 
there are passages of another strain, and there m 
tenderness in the description of the main incident. 
But for " Virginia," some ungracious reader might 
say that the " Lays," being few, are excellent, but 
that if they Avere many they might weary by a too 
close likeness of each to the rest. As it is, the 
ungracious reader could make no such suggestion. 
We all read the book with full and natural enjoy- 
ment, and we call it perfect in its kind. 

H. M. 



v 



; 



i 



PREFACE, 



That what is called the history of the Kings and 
early Consuls of Rome is to a great extent fabulous 
few scholars have, since the time of Beaufort, 
ventured to deny. It is certain that, more than 
three hundred and sixty years after the date 
ordinarily assigned for the foundation of the city, 
the public records were, with scarcely an exception, 
destroyed by the Gauls. It is certain that the 
oldest annals of the commonwealth were compiled 
more than a century and a half after this destruc- 
tion of the records. It is certain, therefore, that 
the great Latin writers of the Augustan age did 
not possess those materials without which a trust- 
worthy account of the infancy of the republic could 
not possibly be framed. Those writers own, indeed, 
that the chronicles to which they had access were 
filled with battles that were never fought, and 
Consuls that were never inaugurated ; and we 
have abundant proof that, in these chronicles. 



<■ vents of the greatest importance, such as the issue 
of the war with Porsena, and the issue of the 
war with Brennus, were grossly misrepresented. 
Under these circumstances a wise man will look 
with great suspicion on the legend which has come 
down to us. He will perhaps be inclined to regard 
the princes who are said to have founded the civil 
and religious institutions of Rome, the son of Mars, 
and the husband of Egeria, as mere mythological 
personages, of the same class with Perseus and 
Ixion, As he draws nearer and nearer to the con- 
fines of authentic history, he will become less and 
less hard of belief. He will admit that the most 
important parts of the narrative have some 
foundation in truth. But he will distrust almost 
all the details, not only because they seldom rest on 
any solid evidence, but also because he will con- 
stantly detect in them, even when they are within 
the limits of physical possibility, that peculiar 
character, more easily understood than defined, 
which distinguishes the creations of the imagina- 
tion from the realities of the world in which we 
live. 

The early history of Rome is indeed far more 
poetical than Anything else in Latin literature, 
The lo\^es of tie Vestal and the God of War, the 



PREFACE. 



15 



cradle laid among the reeds of Tiber, the fig-tree, 
the she-wolf, the shepherd's cabin, the recognition, 
the fratricide, the rape of the Sabines, the death of 
Tarpeia, the fall of Hostius Hostilius, the struggle 
of Mettns Curtius through the marsh, the women 
rushing with torn raiment and dishevelled hair 
heUveen their fathers and their husbands, the 
nio-htly meetings of Numa and the Nymph by the 
well in the sacred grove, the fight of the three 
Romans and the three Albans, the purchase of the 
Sibylline Books, the crime of TuUia, the simulated 
madness of Brutus, the ambiguous reply of the 
Delphian oracle to the Tarquins, the wrongs of 
Lucretia, the heroic actions of Horatius Codes, of 
Sc^vola, and of Cloelia, the Battle of RegiUus, won 
by the aid of Castor and Pollux, the defence of 
Cremem, the touching story of Coriolanus, the still 
more touching story of Virginia, the wild legend 
about the draining of the Alban lake, the combat 
between Valerius Corvus and the gigantic Gaul, are 
among the many instances which will at once 
suggest themselves to every reader. 

In the narrative of Livy, who was a man of fine 
imagination, these stories retain much of their 
genuine character. Nor could even the tasteless 
Dionvsius distort and mutilate them into mere 



16 PREFACE. 

prose. The poetry shines, in spite of him, through 
the dreary pedantry of his eleven books. It is 
discernible in the most tedious and in the most 
superficial modern works on the early times of 
Rome. It eidivens the dulness of the Universal 
History, and gives a charm to the most meagre- 
abridgments of Goldsmith. 

Even in the age of Plutarch there were discern- 
ing men who rejected the popular account of tha 
foundation of Rome, because that account appeared 
to them to have the air, not of a history, but of 
romance or a drama. Plutarch, who was displeased 
at their incredulity, had nothing better to say iii' 
reply to their arguments than that chance some- 
times turns poet, and produces trains of events not 
to be distinguished from the most elaborate plots- 
which are constructed by art. But though the 
existence of a poetical element in the early history 
of the Great City was detected so many years ago, 
the first critic who distinctly saw from what source- 
that poetical element had been derived was James- 
Perizonius, one of the most acute and learned 
antiquaries of the seventeenth century. His- 
theory, which, in his own days, attracted little or 
no notice, was revived in the present generation by 
Niebuhr, a man who would have been the first. 



I 

PREFACE. ' 17 

writer of his time, if his talent for communicating 
truths had borne any proportion to his talent for 
investigating them. That theory had been adopted 
by several eminent scholars of our own country, 
particularly by the Bishop of St. David's, by 
Professor Maiden, and by the lamented Arnold. 
It appears to be now generally received by men 
conversant with classical antiquity ; and indeed it 
rests on such strong proofs, both internal and ex- 
ternal, that it will not be easily subverted. A 
popular exposition of this theory, and of the 
evidence by which it is supported, may not be 
without interest even for readers who are un- 
acquainted with the ancient languages. 

The Latin literature which has come down to 
us is of later date than the commencement of the. 
Second Punic "War, and consists almost exclusively' 
of works fashioned on Greek models. The Latin 
metres, heroic, elegiac, lyric, and dramatic, are of 
Greek origin. The best Latin epic poetry is the 
feeble echo of the Iliad and Odyssey. The best Latin 
eclogues are imitations of Theocritus. The plan of, 
the most finished didactic poem in the Latin tongue 
was taken from Hesiod. The Latin ti-agedies are 
bad copies of the masterpieces of Sophocles and 
Euripides. The Latin comedies are free translations 



18 ' PREFACE. 

from Demophiliis, Menaiider, and Apollodorus. 
Thii Latin philosophy was borrowed, without 
alteration, from the Portico and the Academy; 
and the great Latin orators constantly proposed to 
themselves as patterns the speeches of Demosthenes 
and Lysias. 
,. But there was an earlier Latin literature, a 
literature truly Latin, which has wholly perished, 
which had, indeed, almost wholly perished long 
before those whom we are in the habit of regarding 
as the greatest Latin writers were born. That 
literature abounded with metrical romances, such 
as are found in every country where there is 
much curiosity and intelligence, but little reading 
imd writing. All human beings, not utterly savage, 
long for some information about past times, and 
are delighted by narratives which present pictures 
to the eye of the mind. Biit it is only in very en- 
lightened communities that books are readily 
accessible. Metrical composition, therefore, which 
in a highly civilised nation is a mere luxury, is in 
nations imperfectly civilised almost a necessary of 
Hfe, and is valued less on account of the pleasure 
which it gives to the ear than on account of the 
help which it gives to the memory. A man who 
can invent or embelUsJi an interesting story, and 



PREFACE. 19 

put it into a form which others may easily retain 
in their recollection, will always be highly esteemed 
by a people eager for amusement and information, 
but destitute of libraries. Such is the origin of 
ballad-poetry, a species of composition which 
scarcely ever fails to spring up and flourish in 
every society, at a certain point in the progress 
towards refinement. Tacitus informs us that songs 
were the only memorials of the past which the an- 
cient Germans possessed. We learn from Lucan 
and from Amraianus Marcellinus that the brave 
actions of the ancient Gauls were commemorated 
in the verses of Bards. During many ages, and 
through many revolutions, minstrelsy retained its 
influence over both the Teutonic and the Celtic 
race. The vengeance exacted by the spouse of 
Attila for the murder of Siegfried was celebrated in 
rhymes, of which Germany is still justly proud. 
The ex])loits of Athelstane were commemorated 
by the Anglo-Saxons, and those of Canute by the 
Danes, in rude poems, of which a few fragments 
have come down to us. The chants of the Welsh 
harpers, preserved, through ages of darkness, a 
faint and doubtful memory of Arthur. In the 
Highlands of Scotland may still be gleaned some 
relics of the old songs about CuchuUin and Fin gal. 



20 PflEFACE. 

The long struggle of the Servians against the Otto- 
man power was recorded in lays full of martial 
spirit. We learn from Herrera that when a Peru- 
vian Inca died men of skill were apjDointed to 
celebrate him in verses, which all the people 
learned by heart and sang in public on days of 
festival. The feats of Kurroglou, the great free- 
booter of Turkistan, recounted in ballads composed 
by himself, are known in every village of Northern 
Persia. Captain Beech ey heard the Bards of the 
Sandwich Islands recite the heroic achievements of 
Tamehameha, the most illustrious of their kings. 
Mungo Park found in the heart of Africa a class 
of singing-men, the only annalists of their rude 
tribes, and heard them tell the story of the victory 
which Damel, the negro prince of the JalofTs, won 
over Abdulkader, the Mussulman tyrant of Poota 
Torra. This species of poetry attained a high 
degree of excellence among the Castilians, before 
they began to copy Tuscan patterns. It attained 
a still higher degree of excellence among the 
English and the Lowland Scotch, during the four- 
teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. But it 
reached its full perfection in ancient Greece ; for 
there can be no doubt that the great Homeric 
poems are generically ballads, though widely dis- 



PREFACE. 21 

tinguished from all other ballads, and indeed from 
almost all other human compositions, by trans- 
cendent sublimity and beauty. 

As it is agreeable to general experience that, at 
a certain stage in the progress of society, ballad- 
poetry should flourish, so is it also agreeable to 
general experience that, at a subsequent stage in 
the progress of society, ballad-poetry should be 
undervalued and neglected. Knowledge advances : 
manners change : great foreign models of composi- 
tion are studied and imitated. The phraseology of 
the old minstrels becomes obsolete. Their versifi- 
cation, which, having received its laws only from 
the ear, abounds in irregularities, seems licentious 
and uncouth. Their simplicity appears beggarly 
when compared with the quaint forms and gaudy 
colouring of such artists as Cowley and Gongora. 
The ancient lays, unjustly despised by the learned 
and polite, linger for a time in the memory of the 
vulgar, and are at length too often irretrievably 
lost. We cannot wonder that the ballads of Rome 
should have altogether disappeared, when we re- 
member how very narrowly, in spite of the in- 
vention of printing, those of our own country and 
those of Spain escaped the same fate. There is 
indeed little doubt that oblivion covers many 



22 PREFACE. 

English songs equal to any that were published by 
Bishop Percy, and many Spanish songs as good 
as the best of those which have been so happily 
translated by Mr. Lockhart. Eighty years ago 
England jDOSsessed only one tattered copy of Cliilde 
Waters and Sir Cauline, and Spain only one 
tattered copy of the noble poem of the Cid. The 
snutf of a candle, or a mischievous dog, might in a 
moment have deprived the world for ever of any 
of those fine compositions. Sir Walter Scott, who 
united to the tire of a great poet the minute 
curiosity and patient diligence of a great antiquary, 
was but just in time to save the precious relics of 
the Minstrelsy of the Border. In Germany, the 
lay of the Nibelungs had been long utterly for- 
gotten, when, in the eighteenth century, it was, 
for the first time, printed from a manuscript in the 
old library of a noble family. In truth, the only 
people who, through their whole passage from 
simplicity to the highest civilisation never for a 
moment ceased to love and admire their old 
ballads, were the Greeks. 

That the early Romans should have had ballad- 
poetry, and that this poetry should have perished, 
is therefore not strange. It would, on the con- 
trary, have been strange if these things had not 



PREFACE. 23 

come to pass ; and we should be justified in pro- 
nouncing them highly probable, even if we had no 
direct evidence on the subject. But we have 
direct evidence of unquestionable authority. 

Ennius, who flourished in the time of the 
Second Punic War, was regarded in the Augustan 
age as the father of Latin poetry. He was. in 
trutli, the father of the second school of Latin 
poetry, the only school of which the works ha\e 
descended to us. But from Ennius himself wl" 
learn that there were poets who stood to hirii in 
the same relation in which the author of the 
romance of Count Alarcos stood to Garcilaso, or 
the author of the ''Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode " 
to Lord Surrey. Ennius speaks of verses which 
the Fauns and the Bards were wont to chant 
in the old time, when none had yet studied the 
graces of speech, when none had yet climbed the 
peaks sacred to the Goddesses of Grecian song. 
" Where," Cicero mournfully asks, " are those old 
verses now 1 " 

Contemporary with Ennius was Quintus Fabius- 
Pictor, the earliest of the Roman annalists. His 
account of the infiincy and youth of Romulus and 
Remus has been preserved by Dionysius, and 
contains a very remarkable reference to the ancient 



'24 PREFACE. 

Latin poetry. Fabius says that, in his time, his 
countrymen were still in the habit of singing 
ballads about the Twins. *-K\en in the hut of 
Faustulus," so these old lays appear to have run, 
"the children of Rhea and Mars were, in port 
and in spirit, not like unto swineherds or cow- 
herds, but such that men might well guess them to 
l>e of the blood of kinijs and gods." 

Cato the Censor, who also lived in the days of 
the Second Punic War, mentioned this lost litera- 
ture in his lost work on the antiquities of his 
country. Many ages, he said, before his time, 
there were ballads in praise of illustrious men ; 
and these ballads it was the fashion for the guests 
at banquets to sing in turn while the piper played. 
" Would," exclaims Cicero, " that we still had the 
old ballads of wliich Cato speaks ! " 

Valerius Maximus gives us exactly similar in- 
formation, without mentioning his authority, and 
observes that the ancient Roman ballads were 
probably of more benefit to the young than all the 
lectures of the Athenian schools, and that to the 
influence of the national poetry were to be ascribed 
the virtues of such men as Camillus and Fabricius. 

Vairo, whose authority on all questions con- 
nected with the antiquities of his country is 



PREFACE. 25 

entitled to the greatest respect, tells ns that at 
banquets it was once the fashion for boys to sing, 
sometimes with and sometimes without instru- 
mental music, ancient ballads in praise of men of 
former times. These young performers, he ob- 
serves, were of unblemished character, a circum- 
stance which he probably mentioned because, 
among the Greeks, and indeed in his time among 
the Romans also, the morals of singing-boys were 
in no high repute. 

The testimony of Horace, though given inci- 
dentally, confirms the statements of Cato, 
Valerius Maximus, and Yarro. The poet pre- 
dicts that, under the peaceful administration of 
Augustus, the Romans will, over their full goblets, 
sing to the pipe, after the fashion of their fathers, 
the deeds of brave captains, and the ancient 
legends touching the origin of the city. 

The proposition, then, that Rome had ballad- 
poetry is not merely in itself highly probable, but 
is fully proved by dii^ect evidence of the greatest 
weight. 

This proposition being established, it becomes 
easy to understand why the early history -of tlie 
city is unlike almost everything else in Latin 
literature, native where almost everything else 



-Jii PREFACE. 

is liorrowed, imaginative where almost everything 
else is prosaic. We can scarcely hesitate to pro- 
nounce that the magnificent, pathetic, and truly 
national legends, which present so striking a con- 
trast to all that surrounds them, are broken and 
defaced fragments of that early poetry which, even 
in the age of Cato the Censor, had become anti- 
<juated, and of which Tully had never heard a 
line. 

That this i)oetry should have been suflfered to 
]x^rish will not appear strange when we consider 
liow complete was the triumph of the Greek genius 
<.\er the public mind of Italy. It is probable that, 
at an early period. Homer and Herodotus furnished 
some hints to the Latin minstrels ; but it was not 
•till after the war with Pyrrhus that the poetry of 
Rome began to put ofif its old Ausonian character. 
The transformation was soon consummated. The 
conquered, says Horace, led captive the con- 
<pierors. It was precisely at the time at which 
th« Eoman })cople rose to unrivalled political as- 
cendency that they stooped to pass under the 
intellectual yoke. It was precisely at the time at 
which the sceptre departed from Greece that the 
empire of her language and of her arts became uni- 
versal and despotic. The revolution indeed was 



PREFACE. 27 

not effected without a struggle. N^evius seems to 
have been the last of the ancient line of poets. 
Ennius was the founder of a new dynasty. 
ISTievius celebrated the Firfet Punic War in 
Saturnian verse, the old national verse of Italy. 
Ennius sang the Second Punic War in numbers 
bon owed from the Iliad. The elder poet, in the 
epitaph which he wrote for himself, and which is 
a fine specimen of the early Roman diction and 
versification, plaintively boasted that the Latin 
language had died with him. Thus what to 
Horace appeared to be the first faint dawn of 
Koman literature appeared to Nsevius to be its 
hopeless setting. In truth, one literature was 
setting, and another dawning. 

The victory of the foreign taste was decisive ; 
and, indeed, we can hardly blame the Romans for 
turning away with contempt from the rude lays 
which had delighted their fathers, and giving their 
whole admiration to the immortal productions of 
Greece. The national romances, neglected by the 
great and the refined whose education had been 
finished at Rhodes or Athens, continued, it may be 
supposed, during some generations, to delight the 
vulgar. While Virgil, in hexameters of exquisite 
modulation, described the sports of rustics, those 



28 PREFACE. 

rustics were still singing their wild Saturnian 
ballads. It is not improbable that, at the time 
when Cicero lamented the irreparable loss of the 
poems mentioned by Cato, a search among the 
nooks of the Apennines, as active as the search 
which Sir Walter Scott made among the descend- 
ants of the moss-troopers of Liddesdale, might have 
brought to light many fine remains of ancient 
minstrelsy. No such search was made. The 
Latin ballads perished for ever. Yet discerning 
critics have thought that they could still perceive 
in the early history of Rome numerous fragments 
of this lost poetry, as the traveller on classic 
ground sometimes finds, built into the heavy wall 
of a fort or convent, a pillar rich with acanthus 
leaves, or a frieze where the Amazons and Bac- 
chanals seem to live. The theatres and temples 
of the Greek and the Roman were degraded into 
the quarries of the Turk and the Goth. Even so 
did the ancient Saturnian poetry become the 
quarry in which a crowd of orators and annalists 
found the materials for their prose. 

It is not difficult to trace the process by which 
the old songs were transmuted into the form which 
they now wear. Funeral panegyric and chronicls 
appear to have been the intermediate links which 



PREFACE. 29 

connected the lost ballads with the histories now- 
extant. From a very early period it was the 
usHge that an oration should be pronounced over 
the remains of a noble Roman. The orator, as we 
learn from Pol;ybius, was expected, on such an 
occasion, to recapitulate all the services which the 
ancestors of the deceased had, from the earliest 
time, rendered to the commonwealth. There can be 
little doubt that the speaker on whom this duty was 
imposed would make use of all the stories suited to 
his purpose which were to be found in the popular 
lays. There can be as little doubt that the family 
of an eminent man would preserve a copy of the 
speech which had been pronounced over his corpse. 
The compilers of the early chronicles would have 
recourse to these speeches ; and the great his- 
torians of a later period would have recourse to the 
chronicles. 

It may be worth while to select a particular 
story, and to trace its probable progress through 
these stages. The description of the migration of 
the Fabian house to Cremera is one of the finest 
of the many fine passages which lie thick in the 
earlier books of Livy. The Consul, clad in his 
military garb, stands in the vestibule of his house, 
marshalling his clan, three hundred and six fighting 



30 PREFACE. 

men, all of the same proud patrician blood, all 
worthy to be attended by the fasces, and to com- 
mand the legions. A sad and anxious retinue of 
friends accompanies the adventurers through the 
streets ; but the voice of lamentation is drowned 
by the shouts of 'admiring thousands. As the pro- 
cession passes the Capitol, prayers and vows are 
poured forth, but in vain. The devoted band, 
leaving Janus on the right, marches to its doom 
through the Gate of Evil Luck. After achieving 
high deeds ot valour against overwhelming numbers, 
all perish save one child, the stock from which the 
great Fabian race was destined again to spring for 
the safety and glory of the commonwealth. That 
this fine romance, the details of which are so full 
of poetical truth, and so utterly destitute of all 
show of historical truth, came originally from some 
lay, which had often been sung with great applause 
at banquets, is in the highest degree probable. 
Nor is it difficult to imagine a mode in which the 
transmission might have taken place. 

The celebrated Qnintus Fabius Maximus, who 
died about twenty years before the First Punic 
War, and more than forty years before Ennius was 
born, is said to have been interred with extraor- 
dinary pomp. In the eulogy pronounced over his 



PREFACE. oi 

body all the great exploits of his ancestors w fro 
doubtless recbunted and exaggerated. If tin re 
were then extant songs which gave a vivid and 
touching description of an event, the saddest and 
the most glorious in the long history of the Fabian 
house, nothing could be more natural than that the 
panegyrist should borrow from such songs their 
finest touches, in order to adorn his speech . A f e w^ 
generations later the songs would perhaps be for- 
gotten, or remembered only by shepherds and vine- 
dressers. But the speech would certainly be pre- 
served in the archives of the Fabian nobles. 
Fabius Pictor would be well acquainted with a 
document so interesting to his personal feelings, 
and would insert large extracts from it in his rude 
chronicle. That chronicle, as w^e know, was the 
oldest to which Livy had access. Livy would at a 
glance distinguish the bold strokes of the forgotten 
poet from the dull and feeble narrative by whicli 
they were surrounded, would re-touch them with a^ 
delicate and powerful pencil, and would make them 
immortal. 

That this might happen at Rome can scarcely 
be doubted ; for something very like this has hap- 
pened in several countries, and, among others, in 
our own. Perhaps the theory of Perizonius cannot 



32 PREFACE. 

be better illustrated than by showing that what 
he supposes to have taken place in ancient times 
has, beyond all doubt, taken place in modern 
times. 

" History," says Hume, with the utmost gravity, 
*' has preserved some instances of Edgar's amours, 
from which, as from a specimen, we may form a 
conjecture of the rest." He then tells very agree- 
ably the stories of Elfleda and Elfrida, two stories 
which have a most "suspicious air of romance, and 
whicli, indeed, greatly resemble, in their general 
character, some of the legends of early Rome. He 
cites, as his authority for these two tales, the 
chronicle of William of Malmesbury, who lived in 
the time of King Stephen. The great majority of 
readers suppose that the device by which Elfrida 
was substituted for her young mistress, the artifice 
by wliich Athelvvold obtained the hand of Elfrida, 
the detection of that artifice, the hunting party, and 
the vengeance of the amorous king, are things about 
which there is no more doubt than about the exe- 
cution of Anne Boleyn or the slitting of Sir John 
Coventry's nose. But when we turn to William 
of Malmesbury, we find that Hume, in his eager- 
ness to relate these pleasant fables, has overlooked 
one very important circumstance. William does 



PEEFACB. 33 

indeed tell both the stories ; but he gives us dis- 
tinct notice that he does not warrant their truth, 
and that they rest on no better authority than that 
of ballads. 

Such is the way in which these two well-known 
tales have been handed down. They originally 
appeared in a poetical form. They found their 
way from ballads into an old chronicle. The 
ballads perished ; the chronicle remained. A great 
historian, some centuries after the ballads had been 
altogether forgotten, consulted the chronicle. He 
was struck by the lively colouring of these ancient 
fictions : he transferred them to his pages j and 
thus we find inserted, as unquestionable facts, in a 
narrative which is likely to last as long as the Eng- 
lish tongue, the inventions of some minstrel whose 
works were probably never committed to writing, 
whose name is buried in oblivion, and whose dia- 
lect has become obsolete. It must, then, be ad- 
mitted to be possible, or rather highly probable, 
that the storiee of Romulus and Remus, and of 
the Horatii and Curiatii, may have had a similar 
origin. 

Castilian literature will furnish us with another 
parallel case. Mariana, the classical historian of 
Spain, tells the story of the ill-starred marriage 



34 PEEFACE. 

wliich the King Don Alonso brought about be- 
tween the heirs of Carrion and the two daughters 
of the Cid. The Cid bestowed a princely dower 
on his sons-in-law. But the young men were base 
and proud, cowardly and cruel. They were tried 
in danger, and found wanting. They fled before 
the Moors ; and once, when a lion broke out of his. 
den, they ran and crouched in an unseemly hiding- 
place. They knew that they were despised, and 
took counsel how they might be avenged. They 
parted from their father-in-law with many signs of 
love, and set forth on a journey with Dona Elvira 
and Dona Sol. In a solitary place the bridegrooms 
seized their brides, stripped them, scourged them, 
and departed, leaving them for dead.- But one of 
the house of Bivar, suspecting foul play, had fol- 
lowed the travellers in disguise. The ladies were 
brought back safe to the house of their father. 
Complaint was made to the king. It was adjudged 
by the Cortes that the dower given by the Cid 
should be returned, and that the heirs of Carrion, 
together with one of their kindred, should do battle 
against three knights of the party of the Cid. The 
guilty youths would have declined the combat ; 
but all their shifts were vain. They were van- 
quished in the lists, and for ever disgraced, while 



PREFACE. 35 

their injured wives were sought in marriage by 
great princes. 

Some Spanish writers have laboured to show, 
by an examination of dates and circumstances, 
that this story is untrue. Such confutation was 
surely not needed ; for the narrative is on the face 
of it a romance. How it found its way into Ma- 
riana's history is quite clear. He acknowledges 
his obligations to the ancient chronicles, and had 
doubtless before him the " Cronica del famoso 
Cavallero Cid Euy Diez Campeador," which had 
been printed as early as ^he year 1552. He little 
suspected that all the most striking passages in 
this chronicle were copied from a poem of the 
twelfth century — a poem of which the language and 
versification had long been obsolete, but which 
glowed with no common portion of the fire of the 
Iliad. Yet such was the fact. More than a cen- 
tury and a half after the death of Mariana, this 
venerable ballad, of which one imperfect copy on 
parchment, four hundred years old, had been pre^ 
serv i at Bivar, was for the first time printed^ 
' <in it was found that every interesting cir- 
cumstance of the sfcory of the heirs of Carrion was 
derived by the eloquent Jesuit from a song 
of which he had never heard, and which was 



36 PREFACE. 

tomposed by a minstrel whose very name had long 
I>een forgotten. 

Such, or nearly such, appears to have been the 
process by which the lost ballad-poetry of Kome 
was transformed into history. To reverse that 
process, to transform some portions of early 
Koman history back into the poetry out of which 
they were made, is the object of this work. 

In the following poems tlie author speaks, not in 
his own person, but in the persons of ancienc 
I minstrels who know only what a Roman citizen, 
born three or four hundred years before the 
jChristian era, may be supposed to have known, 
and who are in nowise above the passions and 
prejudices of their age and nation. To these 
imaginary poets must be ascribed some blunders 
which are so obvious that it is unnecessary to 
point them out. The real blunder would have 
been to represent these old poets as deeply vereed 
in general history, and studious of chronological 
accuracy. To them must also be attributed the 
illiberal sneers at the Greeks, the furious party- 
spirit, the contempt for the arts of peace, the love 
of war for its own sake, the ungenerous exultation 
over the vanquished, which the reader will some- 
times observe. To portray a Roman of the age of 



PREFACE. 37 

Camillus or Curius as superior to national anti- 
pathies, as mourning over the devastation and 
slaughter by which empire and triumphs were to 
be won, as looking on human suffering with the 
sympathy of Howard, or as treating conquered 
enemies with the delicacy of the Black Prince, 
would be to violate all dramatic propriety. The 
old Komans had some great virtues — fortitude, 
temperance, veracity, spirit to resist oppression, 
respect for legitimate authority, fidelity in the ob- 
serving of contracts, disinterestedness, ardent 
patriotism — but Christian charity and chivalrous 
generosity were alike unknown to them. 

It would have been obviously improper to mimic 
the manner of any particular age or country. 
Something has been borrowed, however, from our 
own old ballads, and more from Sir Walter Scott, 
the great restorer of our ballad-poetry. To the 
Iliad still greater obligations are due ; and those 
obligations have been contracted with the less 
hesitation, because there is reason to believe that 
some of the old Latin minstrels really had recourse 
to that inexhaustible store of poetical images. 

It would have been easy to swell this little 
volume to a very considerable bulk, by appending 
notes filled with quotations ; but to a learned 



38 PREFACE. 

reader such notes are not necessary ; for an un- 
learned reader they would have little interest ; and 
the judgment passed both by the learned and by 
the unlearned on a work of the imagination will 
always depend much more on the general character 
and spirit of such a work than on minute details. 



Xa^9 of ancient IRome, 

HOEATIUS. 



There can be little doubt that among those parts 
of Early Roman history which had a poetical origin 
was the legend of Horatius Codes. We have 
■several versions of the ^tory, and these versions 
differ from each other in points of no small im- 
portance. Polybius, there is reason to believe, 
heard the tale recited over the remains of some 
Consul or Praetor descended from the old Horatian 
patricians, for he introduces it as a specimen of the 
narratives with which the Romans were in the 
habit of embellishing their funeral oratory. It is 
remarkable that, according to him, Horatius de- 
fended the bridge alone, and perished in the waters. 
According to the chronicles which Livy and Diony- 
;sius followed, Horatius had two companions, swam 
safe to shore, and was loaded with honours and 
rewards. 



40 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

These discrepancies are easily explained. Our 
own literature, indeed, will furnish an exact 
parallel to what may have taken- })lace at Rome. 
It is highly probable that the memory of the war 
of Porsena was preserved by compositions much 
resembling the two ballads which stand first in the 
Relics of Ancient English Poetry. In both those 
ballads the English, commanded by the Percy, 
fight with the Scots, commanded by the Douglas. 
In one of the ballads the Douglas is killed by a 
nameless English archer, and the Percy by a 
Scottish spearman : in the other the Percy slays 
the Douglas in single combat, and is himself made 
prisoner. In tlie former, Sir Hugh Montgomery 
is shot through the lieart by a Northumbrian bow 
man ; in the latter he is taken, and exchanged for 
the Percy. Yet both the ballads relate to the 
same event, and that an event which probably took 
place within the memory of persons who were alive 
when both the ballads "vere made. One of the 
minstrels says : 

•' Old men that knowen the grounde well yeuoughe 
Call it the battell of Otterburn ; 
At Otterburn begap this spurne 
Upon a nionnyn day. 
Ther was the dougghte Doglas slean : 
The Perse never went away." 



HOEATIUS. 41 

The other poet sums up tlje event in the follow- 
ing lines : 

*' Thys fraye bygan at Ofcterborne 
Bytwene the nyglit and the day : 
Ther the Dowglas lost hys lyfe, 
And the Percy was lede away." 

It is b J no means unlikely that there were two 
old Roman lays about the defence of the bridge ; 
and that, while the story which Livy has trans- 
mitted to us was preferred by the multitude, the 
other, which ascribed the whole glory to Horatius 
alone, may have been the favourite with the 
Horatian house. 

The following ballad is supposed to have been 
made about a hundred and twenty years after 
the war which it celebrates, and just before the 
taking of Rome by the Gauls. The author seems 
to have been an honest citizen, proud of the 
military glory of his country, sick of the disputes 
of factions, and much given to pining after good 
old times which had never really existed. The 
allusion, however, to the partial manner in which 
the public lands were allotted, could proceed only 
from a plebeian ; and the allusion to the fraudulent 
sale of spoils marks the date of the poem, and 
shows that the poet shared in the general discontent 



42 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

with which the proceedings of Camillus, after the 
taking of Veii, were regarded. 

The penultimate syllable of the name Porsena 
Ijas been shortened in spite of the authority of 
Niebuhr, Avho pronounces, without assigning any 
ground for his opinion, that Martial was guilty of 
a decided blunder in the line, 

*' Hanc spectare manum Porsena non potuii" 

It is not easy to understand how any modern 
scholar, whatever his attainments may be — and 
those of Niebuhr were undoubtedly immense — can 
venture to pronounce that Martial did not know 
the quantity of a word which he must have uttered 
and heard uttered a hundred times before he left 
school. Niebuhr seems also to have forgotten that 
Martial has fellow-culprits to keep him in counte- 
nance. Horace has committed the same decided 
blunder ; for he gives us, as a pure iambic line, 

" Minacis aut Etrusca Porsense manus." 

Silius Italicus has repeatedly offended in the same 
way, as when he says, 

" Cernitur effugiens ardentem Porsena dextram :** 
and again, 

" Clusinum vulgus, cum, Porsena magne, jubebas.'* 



HOEATIUS. 43 

A modern writer may be content to err in such 
company. 

Niebuhr's supposition tliat each of the three 
defenders of the bridge was the representative of 
one of the three patrician tribes is both ingenious 
and probable, and has been adopted in the follow^ 
ing poem. 



44 LAYS OF ANCIENT KOjSIE. 



HORATIUS. 

A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY CXX3LX. 



Lars Porsena of Clusium 

Bj the Nine Gods he(swore 
That the great house of Tarquin 

Should suffer wrong no more. 
Bj the Nine Gods he swore it, 

And named a trusting day, 
And bade his messengers ride forth, 
East and west and south and north, 

To summon his array. 

IL 

East and west and south and north 

The messengers ride fast, 
And tower and town and cottage 

Have heard the trumpet's blast. 
Shame on the false Etruscan 

Who lingers in his home, 
When Porsena of Ciusjum 

Is on the march for Pome. 



HORATIUS. 45 

III. 

The horsemen and the footmen 

Are pouring in amain 
From many a stately market-place-; 

From many a frnitful plain ; 
From many a lonely hamlet, 

Which, hid by beech and pine, 
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest 

Of purple Apennine 



"&"■ 



IV. 

From lordly Volaterrse, 

Where scowls the far-famed hold 
Piled by the hands of giants 

For godlike kings of old ; 
From seagirt Populonia, 

Whose sentinels descry 
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops 

Fringing the southern sky ; 

V. 

From the proud mart of Pisse, 
Queen of the western waves, 

Where ride Massilia's triremes 
Heavy with fair-haired slaves ; 



46 LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

From where sweet Clanis wanders 
Through corn and vines and flowers ; 

From where Cortona lifts to heaven 
Her diadem of towers. 



VI. 

Tall are the oaks whose acorns 

Drop in dark Auser's rill ; 
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs 

Of the Ciminian hill-; 
Beyond all streams Clitumnus 

Is to the herdsman dear ; 
Best of all pools the fowler loves 

The great Volsinian mere. 



I VII. 

But now no stroke of woodman 

Is heard by Auser's rill ; 
No hunter tracks the stag's green [)ath 

Up the Ciminian hill ; 
Unwatched along Clitumnus 

Grazes the milk-white steer ; 
Unharmed the water fowl may dip 

In the Volsinian mere. 



HORATIirS. 
VIII. 

The harvests of Arretium, 

This year, okl men shall reap, 
This year, young boys in XJmbro 

Shall plunge the struggling sheep ; 
And in the vats of Luna, 

This year, the must shall foam 
Round the white feet of laughing girls 

Whose sires have marched to Rome. 

IX. 

There be thirty chosen prophets, 

The wisest of the land, 
Who alway by Lars Porsena 

Both morn and evening stand : 
Evening and morn the Thirty 

Have turned the verses o'er, 
Traced from the right on linen white 

By mighty seers of yore. 

X. 

And with one voice the Thirty 
Have their glad answer given : 

" Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena; 
Go forth, beloved of Heaven ; 



47 



48 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Go, and return in glory 
To Clusium's royal dome ; 

And hang round Nurscia's altars 
The golden shields of Home." 



XI. 

And now hath every city 

Sent up her tale of men ; 
The foot are fourscore thousand, 

The horse are thousands ten . 
Before the gates of Sutrium 

Is met the great array. 
A proud man was Lars Porseua 

Upon the trysting day. 

XII. 

For all the Etruscan armies 

Were ranged beneath his eye, 
And many a banished Roman, 

And many a stout ally ; 
And with a mighty following 

To join the muster came 
The Tusculan Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name. 



HOBATIUS. 
XIII. 

But by the yellow Tiber 

Was tumult and affright : 
From all the spacious champaign 

To Rome men took their flight. 
A mile around the city, 

The throng stopped up the ways ; 
A fearful sight it was to see 

Through two long nights and days. 

XIV. 

For aged folks on crutches, 

And women great with child, 
And mothers sobbing over babes 

That clung to them and smiled, 
And sick men borne in litters 

High on the necks of slaves, 
And troops of sun-burned husbandmen 

With reaping-hooks and staves, 

XV. 

And droves of mules and asses 
Laden with skins of wine, 

And endless flocks of goats and sheep, 
And endless herds of kine, 



49 



LAYS OP ANCIENT ROME. 

And endless trains of waggons 
That creaked beneath the weight 

Of corn-sacks and of household goods, 
Choked every roaring gate. 



XVI. 

Now, from the rock Tarpeian, 

Could the wan burghers spy 
The line of blazing villages 

Red ill the midnight sky. 
The Fathers of the City, 

They sat all night and day, 
For every hour some horseman came 

With tidings of dismay. 



XVII. 

To eastward and to westward 

Have spread the Tuscan bands; 
Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote 

In Crustumerium stands. 
Verbenna down to Ostia 

Hath wasted all the plain ; 
Astur hath stormed Janiculum, 

And the stout jruards are slain. 



HORATIUS. 51 

xviir. 
I wis, in all the Senate, 

There was no heart so bold, 
But sore it ached and fast it beat, 

When that ill news was told. 
Forthwith up rose the Consul, 

Up rose the Fathers all ; 
In haste they girded up their gowns, 

And hied them to the wall. 

XIX. 

They held a council standing 

Before the River-Gate ; 
Short time was there, ye well may guess, 

For musing or debate. 
Out spake the Consul roundly : 

"The bridge must straight go down; 
For, since Janiculum is lost, 

Nought else can save the town." 

XX. 

Just then a scout came flying, 

All wild with haste and fear ; 
** To arms ! to arms ! Sir Consul : 

Lars Porsena is here." 



62 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

On the low hills to westward 
The Consul fixed his eye, 

And saw the swarthy storm of dust 
Rise fast along the sky. 



XXI. 

And nearer fast and nearer 

Doth the red whirlwind come ; 
And louder still and still more loud, 
From underneath that rolling cloud, 
Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, 

The trampling, and the hum. 
And plainly and more plainly 

Now through the gloom appears. 
Far to left and far to right, 
In broken gleams of dark-blue light^ 
The long array of helmets bright, 

The long array of spears. 



XXII. 

And plainly and more plainly, 
Above that glimmering line, 

Now might ye see the banners 
Of twelve fair cities shine ; 



HORATIUS. 



53 



But the banner of proud Clusium 

Was highest of them all, 
The terror of the Umbrian, 

The terror of the Gaul. 

XXIII. /' , 

And plainly and more plainly 

Now might the burghers know, 
By port and vest, by horse and crest, 

Each warlike Lucumo. 
There Cilnius of Arretium 

On his fleet roan was seen ; 
And Astur of the four-fold shield, 
Girt with the brand none else may wield, 
Tolumnius with the belt of gold, 
And dark Verbenna from the hold 
By reedy Thrasymene. 

XXIV. 

Fast by the royal standard, 

O'erlooking all the war, 
Lars Porsena of Clusium 

Sat in his ivory car. 
By the right wheel rode Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name ; 



54 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



Aud by the left false Sextus, 

That wrought the deed of shame^ 



XXV. 

But when the face of Sextus 

Was seen among the foes, 
A yell that rent the firmament 

From all the town arose. 
On the house-tops was no woman 

But spat towards him and hissed^ 
No child but screamed out curses, 

And shook its little fist. 

XXVI. 

But the Consul's brow was sad, 

And the Consul's speech was low^ 
And darkly looked he at the wall, 

And darkly at the foe. 
" Their van will be upon us 

Before the bridge goes down ; 
And if they once may win the bridge^ 

What hope to save the toNvn?" 

XXVII. 

Then out spake brave Horatius, 
The Captain of the Gate : 



HORATIUS. 55 

" To every man upon this earth 

Death coineth soon or late. 
And how can man die better 

Than facing fearful odds, 
For the ashes of his fathers, 

And the temples of his Gods, 

XXVIII. 

" And for the tender mother 

Who dandled him to rest, 
And for the wife who nurses 

His baby at her breast, 
And for the holy maidens 

Who feed the eternal flame. 
To save them from false Sextus 

That wrought the deed of shame? 

XXIX. 

" Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, 

With all the speed ye may ; 
I, with two more to help me, 

Will hold the foe in play. 
In yon strait path a thousand 

May well be stopped by three. 
Now who will stand on either hand, 

And keep the bridge with me 1 " 



56 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

XXX. 

Then out spake Spurius Lartius ; 

A E-amnian proud was he : 
" Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 
And out spake strong Herminius ; 

Of Titian blood was he : 
" I will abide on thy left side, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 

XXXI. 

*' Horatius," quoth the Consul, 

" As thou sayest, so let it be." 
And straight against that great array 

Forth went the dauntless Three. 
For Romans in Rome's quarrel 

Spared neither land nor gold. 
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, 

In the brave days of old. 

XXXII. 

Then none was for a party ; 

Then all were for the state ; 
Then the great man helped the poor, 

And the poor man loved the great : 



HOEATIUS. 57 



Then lands were fairly portioned 
Then spoils were fairly sold : 

The Romans were like brothers 
In the brave days of old. 



XXXIII. 

Now Roman is to Roman 

More liateful than a foe, 
And the Tribunes beard the high, 

And the Fathers grind the low. 
As we wax hot in faction, 

In battle we wax cold : 
Wherefore men fight not as they fought 

In the brave days of old. 



XXXIV. 

Now while the Three were tightening 

Their harness on their backs, 
The Consul was the foremost man 

To take in hand an axe : 
And Fathers mixed with Commons 

Seized hatchet, bar, and crow. 
And smote upon the planks above, 

And loosed the props below. 



58 LAYS Of ancient rome. 

XXXV. 

Meanwhile the Tuscan army, 

Right glorious to behold, 
Came flashing back the noonday light, 
Hank behind rank, like suro^es bris^ht 

Of a broad sea of gold. 
Four hundred trumpets sounded 

A peal of warlike glee. 
As that great host, with measured tread, 
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread, 
Kolled slowly towards the bridge's head, 

Where stood the dauntless Three. 



XXXVI. 

The Three stood calm and silent, 

And looked upon the foes. 
And a jjreat shout of laufjhter 

From all the vanguard rose : 
And forth three chiefs came spurring 

Before that deep array ; 
To earth they sprang, their swords they 

drew, 
And lifted high their shields, and flew 

To win the narrow way : 



HOEATIUS. 59 

XXXVII. 

Aunus from green Tifernum, 

Lord of the Hill of Vines ; 
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves 

Sicken in Ilva's mines ; 
And Picus, long to Ciusium 

Vassal in peace and war, 
Who led to fight his Umbrian powers 
From that grey crag where, girt with towers. 
The fortress of Nequinum lowers 

O'er the pale waves of Nar. 

XXXVIII. 

Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus 

Into the stream beneath : 
Herminius struck at Seius, 

And clove him to the teeth : 
At Picus brave Horatius 

Darted one fiery thrust ; 
And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms 

Clashed in the bloody dust. 

XXXIX. / 

Then Ocnus of Falerii 

Rushed on the Roman Three ; 



IiAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And Lausulus of Urgo, 

The rover of the sea ; 
And Aruns of Yolsinium, 

Who slew the great wild boar, 
The great wild boar that had his den 
Amidst the reeds of Cosa's fen, 
And wasted fields, and slaughtered men, 

Along Albinia's shore. 

XL. / ' 

Herminius smote down Aruns : 

Lartius laid Ocnus low : 
Right to the heart of Lausulus 

Horatius sent a blow. 
*' Lie there," he cried, " fell pirate ! 

No more, aghast and pale, 
From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark 
The track of thy destroying bark. 
No more Campania's hinds shall fly 
To woods and caverns when they spy 

Thy thrice accursed sail." 

XLI. 

But now no sound of laughter 
Was heard among the foes. 



HORATIUS. W. 

A wild and wrathful clamour 

From all the vanguard rose. 
Six spears' lengths from the entrance 

Halted that deep array, 
And for a space no man came forth 

To win the narrow way. 

XLII. 

But hark 1 the cry is Astur : 

And lo ! the ranks divide ; 
And the great Lord of Luna 

Comes with his stately stride. 
Upon his ample shoulders 

Clangs loud the fourfold shield, 
And in his hand he shakes the brand 

Which none but he can wield. 

XLIII. 

He smiled on those bold Romans 

A smile serene and high ; 
He eyed the flinching Tuscans, 

And scorn was in his eye. 
Quoth he, " The she-wolfs litter 

Stand savagely at bay : 
But will ye dare to follow, 

If Astur clears the way 1 " 



62 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

XLIV. / 7 

Then, Avhirling up his broadsword 

With both hands to the height, 
He rushed against Horatius, 

And smote with all his might. 
"With shield and blade Horatius 

Right deftly turned the blow. 
The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh; 
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh : 
The Tuscans raised a joyful cry 

To see the red blood floAV. 

XLV. 

He reeled, and on Herminius 

He leaned one breathing- smce, 
Then, like a wild cat mad with wounds. 

Sprang right at Astur's face; 
Through teeth, and skull, and helmet, 

So fierce a thrust he sped, 
The good sword stood a hand-breadth out 

Behind the Tuscan's head. 

XLVI 

And the great Lord of Luna 
Fell at that deadly stroke, 



HORATIUS. 63 

As falls on Mount Alvernus 

A thunder-smitten oak. 
Far o'er tlie crashing forest 

The giant arms lie spread ; 
And the pale augurs, muttering low, 

Gaze on the blasted head. 

XLVII. 

On Astur's throat Horatius 

Right firmly pressed his heel, 
And thrice and four times tugged amain. 

Ere he wrenched out the steel. 
" And see," he cried, " the welcome, 

Fair guests, that waits you here ! 
What noble Lucumo comes next 

To taste our Roman cheer 1 " 

XLVIII. 

But at his haughty challenge 

A sullen murmur ran. 
Mingled of wrath, and shame, and dread. 

Along that glittering van. 
There lacked not men of prowess, 

Nor men of lordly race ; 
For all Etruria's noblest 

Were round the fatal place. 



64 ' LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

XLIX. 

But all Etruria's noblest 

Felt their hearts sink to see 
On the earth the bloody corpses, 

In the path the dauntless Three : 
And, from the ghastly entrance 

Where those bold Romans stood, 
All shrank, like boys who unaware. 
Ranging the woods to start a hare, 
Come to the mouth of the dark lair 
Where, growling low, a fierce old bear 

Lies amidst bones and blood. 



L. //^ 

Was none who would be foremost 

To lead such dire attack : 
But those behind cried " Forward ! " 

And those before cried " Back ! " 
And backward now and forward 

Wavers the deep array ; 
And on the tossing sea of steel, 
To and fro the standards reel ; 
And the victorious trumpet-peal 

Dies fitfully away. 



HORATIUS. 
LI. 

"Yet one man for one moment 

Stood out before the crowd ; 
Well known was he to all the Three, 

And they gave him greeting loud, 
*' Now welcome, welcome, Sextus ! 

Now welcome to thy home ! 
Why dost thou stay, and turn away 1 

Here lies the road to Rome." 

LII. 

Thrice looked he at the city ; 

Thrice looked he at the dead ; 
And thrice came on in fury, 

And thrice turned back in dread : 
And, white with fear and hatred, 

Scowled at the narrow way 
Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, 

The bravest Tuscans lay. 

LIII. 

But meanwhile axe and lever 
Have manfully been plied ; 

And now the bridge hangs tottering 
Above -the boiling tide. 



65 



6Q LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

" Come back, come back, Horatius ! 

Loud cried the Fathers alh 
" Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 

Back, ere the ruin fall ! " 



LIV. 

Back darted Spuriiis Lartius ; 

Herminius darted back : 
And, as they passed, beneath their feet 

They felt the timbers crack. 
But when they turned their faces, 

And on the farther shore 
Saw brave Horatius stand alone, 

They would have crossed once more* 

LV. 

But with a crash like thunder 

Fell every loosened beam, 
And, like a dam, the mighty wreck 

Lay right athwart the stream : 
And a long shout of triumph 

Rose from the walls of Rome, 
As to the highest turret-tops 

Was splashed the yellow foam. 



HOKA.TIUS. 67 

LVI. 

And, like a horse unbroken 

When first he feels the rein, 
The furious river struggled hard, 

And tossed his tawny mane, 
And burst the curb, and bounded, 

Rejoicing to be free, 
And whirling down, in fierce career, 
Battlement, and plank, and pier. 

Rushed headlong to the sea. 

LVII. 

Alone stood brave Horatius, 

But constant still in mind ; 
Thrice thirty thousand foes Ijefore, 

And the broad flood behind. 
*' Down with him ! " cried false Sex bus. 

With a smile on his pale face. 
" Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, 

" Now yield thee to our grace." 

LVIII. 

Round turned he, as not deigning 

Those craven ranks to see ; 
Nought spake he to Lars Porsena, 

To Sextus nought spake he ; 



68 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROMS. 

But he saw on Palatinus 

The white porch of his home ; 

And he spake to the noble river 
That rolls by the towers of Rome. 

LIX. 

«0h, Tiber! father Tiber ! 

To whom the Romans pray, 
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, 

Take thou in charge this day ! " 
So he spake, and speaking sheathed, 

The good sword by his side, 
And with his harness on his back, 

Plunged headlong in the tide. 

LX. /O 
No sound of joy or sorrow 

Was heard from either bank ; 
But friends and foes in dumb surprise, 
With parted lips and straining eyes, 

Stood gazing where he sank ; 
And when above the surges 

They saw his crest appear. 
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, 
And even the ranks of Tuscany 

Could scarce forbear to cheer. 



HORATIUS. 



LXI. 



But fiercely ran the current, 

Swollen high by months of rain : 
And fast his blood was flowing ; 

And he was sore in pain, 
And heavy with his armour, 

And spent with changing blows : 
And oft they thought him sinking, 

But still again he rose. 



LXII. 



Never, I weeA, did swimmer, 

In such an evil case, 
Struggle through such a raging flood 

Safe to the landing place : 
But his limbs were borne up bravely 

By the brave heart within. 
And our good father Tiber 

Bore bravely up his chin. 



LXIII. 



" Curse on him ! " quoth false Sextus ; 
" Will not the villain drown "? 



70 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

But for this stay, ere close of day 
We should have sacked the town ! " 

" Heaven help him ! " quoth Lars Porsena, 
" And bring him safe to shore ; 

For such a gallant feat of arms 
Was never seen before." 

LXIV, 

And now he feels the bottom : 

Now on dry earth he stands ; 
Now round him throng the Fathers 

To press his gory liands ; 
And now, with shouts and clapping, 

And noise of weef)ing loud, 
He enters through the River-Gate, 

Borne by the joyous crowd. 

LXV. 

They gave him of the corn-land. 

That was of public right, 
As much as two strong oxeoi 

Could plough from morn till night ; 
And they made a molten image, 

And set it up on high, 
And there it stands unto this day 

To witness if I lie. 



HORATIUS. 7i 

LXVI. 

It stands in the Comitium, 

Plain for all folk to see ; 
Horatius in his harness, 

Halting upon one knee : 
And underneath is written, 

In letters all of gold. 
How valiantly he kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 

LXVII. 

And still his name sounds stirring 

Unto the men of E-ome, 
As the trumpet-blast that cries to them 

To charge the Volscian home ; 
And wives still pray to Juno 

For boys with hearts as bold 
As his who kept the bridge so well 

In the brave days of old. 

LXVIII. 

And in the nights of winter. 

When the cold north winds blow, 

And the long howling of the wolves 
Is heard amidst the snow ; 



72 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

When round tlip lonely cottage 
Roars loud the tempest's din. 
And the i^ood loijs of Al<^idus 

o o o 

Roar louder yet within ; 

LXIX. 

When the oldest cask is opened, 

And the largest lamp is lit ; 
When the chestnuts glow in the embers^ 

And the kid turns on the spit; 
When young and old in circle 

Around the firebrands close ; 
AVhen the girls are weaving baskets, 

And the lads are shaping bows ; 

LXX. 

When the goodman mends his armouFj, 

And trims his helmet's plume ; 
When the good wife's shuttle merrily 

Goes Hashing through tiie loom ; 
W^ith wee))ing and with laughter 

Still is the story told, 
How well Horatius kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 



73 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE 
EEGILLUS. 



The following poem is supposed to have been pro- 
duced about ninety years after the lay of Horatius. 
Some persons mentioned in the lay of Horatius 
make their appearance again, and some appellations 
and epithets used in the lay of Horatius have been 
purposely repeated : for, in an age of ballad poetry, 
it scarcely ever fails to hapjDen, that certain 
phrases come to be appropriated to certain men and 
things, and are regularly applied to those men and 
things by every minstrel. Thus we find, both in 
the Homeric poems and in Hesiod, /3tj? 'lipaKXtjeiri, 
TrepiKXvTOQ 'A/jipiyvtieiQ, ^t/iKTopoQ 'Apy£i(p6vTric, 
€7rTcnrv\oc Qtjfti], 'EXiyrjQ evek ifvuoixoio. Thus, too, 
in our own national songs, Douglas is almost 
always the doughty Douglas : England is merry 
England : all the gold is red : and all the ladies 
are gay. 

The principal distinction between the lay of 



74 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Horatius and the lay of the Lake Regillus is that 
the former is meant to be purely Roman, while the 
latter, though national in its general spirit, has a 
slight tincture of Greek learning and of Greek 
superstition. The story of the Tarquins, as it has 
come down to us, appears to have been compiled 
from the works of several popular poets ; and one, 
at least, of those poets appears to have visited the 
Greek colonies in Italy, if not Greece itself, and to 
have had some acquaintance with the works of 
Homer and Herodotus. Many of the most striking 
adventures of the house of Tarquin, before Lucretia 
makes her appearance, have a Greek character. 
The Tarquins themselves are represented as Corin- 
thian nobles of the great house of the Bacchiadae^ 
driven from their country by the tyranny of that 
Cypselus, the tale of whose strange escape Hero- 
dotus has related with incomparable simplicity and 
liveliness. Livy and Dionysius tell us that, when 
Tarquin the Proud was asked what was the best 
mode of governing a conquered city, he replied 
only by beating down with his staff all the tallest 
poppies in his garden. This is exactly what 
Herodotus, in the passage to which reference has 
already been made, relates of the counsel given to 
Periander, the son of Cypselus. The stratagem by 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 75 

which the town of Gabii is brought under the 
power of the Tarquins is again obviously copied 
from Herodotus. The embassy of the young Tar- 
quins to the oracle at Delphi is just such a story 
as would be told by a poet whose head was full of 
the Greek mythology ; and the ambiguous answer 
returned by Apollo is in the exact style of the 
prophecies which, according to Herodotus, lured 
Croesus to destruction. Then the character of the 
narrative changes. From the first mention of Lu- 
cretia to the retreat of Porsena nothing seems to 
be borrowed from foreign sources. The villany of 
Sextus, the suicide of his victim, the revolution, 
the death of the sons of Brutus, the defence of the 
bridge, Mucius burning his hand, Cloelia swimming- 
through the Tiber, seem to be all strictly Komau. 
But when we have done with the Tuscan war, and 
enter upon the war with the Latines, we are again 
struck by the Greek air of the story. The Battle 
of the Lake Regillus is in all respects a Homeric 
battle, except that the combatants ride astride on 
their horses, instead of driving chariots. The mass 
of fighting men is hardly mentioned. The leaders 
single each other out, and engage hand to hand. 
The great object of the waniors on both sides is, 
as in the Iliad, to obtain possession of the spoils 



(<5 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

and bodies of the slain ; and several circumstances 
are related which forcibly remind us of the great 
slaughter round the corpses of Sarpedon and Patro- 
clus. 

But there is one circumstance which deserves 
especial notice. Both the war of Troy and the 
war of Regillus were caused by the licentious 
passions of young princes, who were therefore 
peculiarly bound not to be sparing of their own 
persons in the day of battle. Now the conduct of 
8extus at Begilius, as described by Livy, so exactly 
resembles that of Paris, as described at the begin- 
ning of the third book of the Iliad, that it is diffi- 
cult to believe the resemblance accidental. Paris 
a})pears before the Trojan ranks, defying the 
bravest Greek to encounter him : 

Tpwalu ^6j/ irpoixaxi-C^v ' KXe^avZpos deoeidrjs, 

. ^Apyeic^f TrpoKa\i.C^TO iravras aplffTOVSy 
iuTifiiov /xax^craaOai eV alvrj STjiorfjTi. 

Livy introduces Sextus in a similar manner : 
*' Ferocem juvenem Tarquinium, ostentantem se 
in prima exsulura acie." Menelaus rushes to meet 
Paris. A Roman noble, eager for vengeance, spurs 
his horse towards Sextus. Both the guilty princes 
are instantly terror-stricken ; 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 77 

iu irpofxaxoKTi. (paveura, KaTeTrATjyrj (p'lKoi/ ^rop' 
&i|/ 5' erdpcav (Is eOuos €;^a^eTO Krip' aAe^lvoiV, 

" Tarquinius," says Livy, "retro in agmen 
suorum infenso cessit hosti." If this be a for- 
tuitous coincidence, it is one of the most extra- 
ordinary in literature. 

In the following poem, therefore, images and 
incidents have been borrowed, not merely without 
scruple, but on principle, from the incomparable 
battle-pieces of Homer. 

The popular belief at Rome, fi'om an early 
period, seems to have been that the event of the 
great day of Kegillus was decided by supernatural 
agency. Castor and Pollux, it was said, had fought, 
armed and mounted, at the head of the legions of 
the commonwealth, and had afterwards carried the 
news of the victory with incredible speed to the 
city. The well in the Forum at which they 
had alighted was pointed out. Near the well rose 
their ancient temple. A great festival was kept 
to their honour on the Ides of Quintilis, supposed 
to be the anniversary of the battle ; and on that 
day sumptuous sacrifices were offered to them at 
the public charge. One spot on the margin of 
Lake Regillus was regarded during many ages with 



78 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

superstitious awe. A mark, resembling in shape a 
horse's hoof, was discernible in the volcanic rock ; 
and this mark was believed to have been made by 
one of the celestial chargers. 

How the legend originated cannot now be ascer- 
tained : but we may easily imagine several ways in 
M'hich it might have originated ; nor is it at all 
necessary to suppose, with Julius Frontinus, that 
two young men were dressed up by the Dictator 
to personate the sons of Leda. It is probable that 
Livy is correct when he says that the Koman 
general, in the hour of peril, vowed a temple to 
Castor. If so, nothing could be more natural than 
that the multitude should ascribe the victory to 
the favour of the Twin Gods. When such was the 
prevailing sentiment, any man who chose to de- 
clare that, in the midst of the confusion and 
slaughter, he had seen two godlike forms on white 
horses scattering the Latines, would find ready 
credence. We know, indeed, that, in modern 
times, a very similar story actually found credence 
among a people much more civilised than the 
Romans of the fifth century before Christ. A 
chaplain of Cortes, writing about thirty years after 
the conquest of Mexico, in an age of printing presses, 
libraries, universities, scholars, logicians, jurists, and 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 79 

statesmen, had the face to assert that, in one engage- 
ment against the Indians, Saint James had ap- 
peared on a grey horse at the head of the Castilian 
adventurers. Many of those adventurers were 
living when this lie was printed. One of them, 
honest Bernal Diaz, wrote an account of the expe- 
dition. He had the evidence of his own senses 
against the legend ; but he seems to have distrusted 
even the evidence of his own senses. He says that 
he was in the battle, and that he saw a grey horse 
with a man on his back, but that the man was, to 
his thinking, Francesco de Morla, and not the 
ever-blessed apostle Saint James. " Nevertheless," 
Bernal adds, " it may be that the person on the 
grey horse was the glorious apostle Saint James, 
■and that I, sinner that I am, was unworthy to see 
him." The Rojnans of the age of Cincinnatus were 
probably quite as credulous as the Spanish subjects 
•of Charles the Fifth. It is therefore conceivable 
that the appearance of Castor and Pollux may have 
become an article of faith before the generation 
which had fought at Regillus had passed away. 
Nor could anything be more natural than that the 
poets of the next age should embellish this story, 
and make the celestial horsemen bear the tidings 
■of victory to Rome. 



<{) LAYS OF ANCIENT KOME. 

Many years after the temple of the Twin God» 
had been built in the Forum, an important addi- 
tion was made to the ceremonial by which the 
state annually testified its gratitude for their pro- 
tection. Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius were 
elected Censors at a momentous crisis. It had 
become absolutely necessary that the classification 
of the citizens should be revised. On that classifi- 
cation depended the distribution of political power. 
Party spirit ran high ; and the republic seemed to 
be in danger of falling under the dominion either 
of a narrow oligarchy or of an ignorant and head- 
strong rabble. Under such circumstances, the 
most illustrious patrician and the most illustrious 
plebeian of the age were intrusted with the office 
of arbitrating between the angry factions ; and 
they performed their arduous task to the satisfac- 
tion of all honest and reasonable men. 

One of their reforms was a remodelling of the 
equestrian order ; and, having effected this reform, 
they determined to give to their work a sanction 
derived from religion. In the chivalrous societies 
of modern times, societies which have much more 
than may at first sight appear in common with the 
equestrian order of Rome, it has been usual to 
invoke the special protection of some Saint, and ta 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE RFGILLUS. 81 

observe his clay witli peculiar solemnity. Thus 
the Companions of the Garter Avear the image of 
Saint George depending from their collars, and 
meet, on great occasions, in St. George's Chapel. 
Thus, when Lewis the Fourteenth instituted a new 
order of chivalry for the rewarding of military 
merit, he commended it to the favour of his own 
glorified ancestor and patron, and decreed that all 
the members of the fraternity should meet at the 
royal palace on the feast of Saint Lewis, should 
attend the king to chapel, should hear mass, and 
should subsequently hold their great annual as- 
sembly. There is a considerable resemblance 
between this rule of the order of Saint Lewis and 
the rule which Fabius and Decius made respecting 
the Roman knights. It was ordained that a grand 
muster and inspection of the equestrian body 
should be part of the ceremonial perfornied, on 
the anniversary of the battle of Regillus, in honour 
of Castor and Pollux, the two equestrian gods. 
All the knights, clad in purple, and crowned with 
olive, were to meet at a temple of Mars in the 
suburbs. Thence they were to ride in state to the 
Forum, where the temple of the Twins stood. This 
pageant was, during several centuries considered 
as one of the most splendid sights of Rome, In 



82 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROMK. 

the time of Dionysius tlie cavalcade sometimes 
consisted of live thousand horsemen, all persons of 
fair repute and easy fortune. 

There can be no doubt that the Censors who in- 
stituted this august ceremony acted in concert 
with the Pontiffs, to whom, by the constitution of 
Eome, the superintendence of the public worship 
belonged ; and it is probable that those high re- 
ligious functionaries were, as usual, fortunate 
enough to find in their books or traditions some 
warrant for the innovation. 

The following poem is supposed to have been 
made for this great occasion. Songs, we know, 
were chanted at the religious festivals of Rome 
from an early j^eriod ; indeed, from so early a 
period that some of the sacred verses were popularly 
ascribed to Nu ma, and were utterly unintelligible 
in the age of Augustus. In the Second Punic 
War a great feast was held in honour of Juno, and 
a song was sung in her praise. This song was 
extant when Livy wrote ; and, though exceedingly 
rugged and uncouth, seemed to him not wholly des- 
titute of merit. A song, as we learn from Horace, 
was part of the established ritual at the great 
Secular Jubilee. It is therefore likely that the 
Censors and Pontiffs, when thev had resolved to 



THE BATTLE OP THE LAKE REGILLU8. 83 

add a grand procession of knights to the other 
solemnities annually performed on the Ides of 
Quintilis, would call in the aid of a poet. Such a 
poet would naturally take for his subject the battle 
of Regillus, the a])pearance of the Twin Gods, and 
the institution of their festival. He would find 
abundant materials in the ballads of his predeces- 
sors ; and he would make free use of the scanty 
stock of Greek learning which he had himself 
acquired. He would probably introduce some 
wise and holy Pontiff enjoining the magnificent 
ceremonial, which, after a long interval, had at 
length been adopted. If the poem succeeded, many 
persons would commit it to memory. Parts of it 
would be sung to the pipe at banquets. It would 
be peculiarly interesting to the great Posthumian 
House, which numbered among its many images 
that of the Dictator Aulus, the hero of Regillus. 
The orator who, in the following generation, pro- 
nounced the funeral panegyric over the remains of 
Lucius Posthumius Megellus, thrice Consul, would 
borrow largely from the lay ; and thus some pas- 
sages, much disfigured, would probably find their 
way into the chronicles which were afterwards in 
the hands of Dionysius and Livy. 

Antiquaries differ widely as to the situation of 



84 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

the field of battle. The opinion of those who sup- 
pose that the armies met near Corimfelle, between 
Frascati and the Monte Porzio, is at least plausible^ 
and has been followed in the poem. 

As to the details of the battle, it has not been 
thoiight desirable to adhere minutely to the 
accounts which have come down to us. Those 
accounts, indeed, differ widely from each other, 
and, in all probability, differ as widely from the 
ancient poem from which they were originally de- 
rived. 

It is unnecessary to point out the obvious imita- 
tions of the Iliad, which have been purposely in- 
troduced. 



85 



THE 

BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 

A LAY SUNG AT THE FEAST OF CASTOK AND POLLUX, 
ON THE IDES OF QUINTILIS, IN THE YEAR OF 
THE CITY CCCCLI. 



I. 

Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note ! 

Ho, lictors, clear the way ! 
The Knights will ride, in all their pride, 

Along the streets to-day. 
To-day the doors and windows 

Are hung with garlands all, 
From Castor in the Forum, 

To Mars without the wall. 
Each Knight is robed in purpl*' 

AYith olive each is crowned ; 
A gallant war-horse under each ^' 

Paws haughtily the ground. 
While flows the Yellow Ptiver, 



86 LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

While stands the Sacred Hill, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 

Shall have such honour still. 
Gay are the Mai-tian Kalends : 

December's Nones are gay : 
But the proud Ides, when the squadron 
rides, 

Shall be Rome's whitest day. 

II. 

Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

We keep this solemn feast. 
Swift, swift, the Great Twin Brethren 

Came spurring from the east. 
They came o'er wild Parthenius 

Tossing in waves of pine. 
O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam. 

O'er purple Apennine, 
From where with flutes and dances 

Their ancient mansion rings. 
In lordly Lacedaemon, 

The City of two kings, 
To where, by Lake Regillns, 

Under the Porcian height, 
All in the lands of Tusculum, 

Was fought the glorious fight. 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 87 

III. 

Now on the place of slaughter 

Are cots and sheepfolds seen, 
And rows of vines, and fields of wheat, '? 

And apple-orchards green ; 
The swine crush the big acorns 

That fall from Corne's oaks. 
Upon the turf by the Fair Fount -' 

The reaper's pottage smokes. 
The fisher baits his angle ; 

The hunter twangs his bow ; 
Little they think on those strong limbs ^ 

That moulder deep below. 
Little they think how sternly 

That day the trumpets pealed ; 
How in the slippery swamp of blood ^ 

Warrior and war-horse reeled : 
How wolves came with fierce gallop, 

And crows on eager wings. 
To tear the flesh of captains, 

And peck the eyes of kings ; 
How thick the dead lay scattered 

Under the Porcian height ; 
How through the gates of Tusculum 

Raved the wild stream of flight ; 



LAYS OF AMCIENT ROME. 

And how the Lake Regillus 
Bubbled with crimson foam, 

What time tlie Thirty Cities 
Came foith to war with Rome. 

IV. 

But, Roman, when thou standest 

Upon that holy ground, 
Look thou with heed on the dark rock' ? 

That girds the dark lake round, 
So shalt thou see a hoof -mark 

Stamped deep into the flint : 
It was no hoof of mortal steed ) 

That made so strange a dint : 
There to the Great Twin Brethren 

Vow thou thy vows, and pray 
That they, in tempest and in fight, : 

Will keep thy head alway. 

V. 

Since last the Great Twin Brethren 

Of mortal eyes were seen, 
Have years gone by an hundred 

And fourscore and thirteen. 
That summer a Virginius 

Was Consul first in place ; 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 89 

The second was stout Aulus, 

Of the Posthumian race. 
The Herald of the Latines 

From Gabii came in state : 
The Herald of the Latines 

Passed through Rome's Eastern Gate : 
The Herald of the Latines 

Did in our Forum stand ; 
And there he did his office, 

A sceptre in his hand. 

VI. 

" Hear, Senators and people 

Of the good town of Rome, 
The Thirty Cities charge you 

To bring the Tarquins home : 
And if ye still be stubborn, 

To work the Tarquins wrong. 
The Thirty Cities warn you. 

Look that your wails be strong." 

VIL 

Then spake the Consul Aulus, 

He spake a bitter jest : 
" Once the jay sent a message 

Unto the eagle's nest : — 



90 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Now yield thou up thine eyrie 

Unto the carrion-kite, 
Or come forth valiantly, and face '^l 

The jays in deadly fight. — 
Forth looked in wrath the eagle ; 

And carrion-kite and jay, 
Soon as they saw his beak and claw, ^ 

Fled screaming far away." 



VIII. 

The Herald of the Latines 

Hath hied him back in state ; 
The Fathers of the City 

Are met in high debate. 
Then spake the elder Consul, 

An ancient man and wise : 
^ Now hearken. Conscript Fathers, 

To that which I advise. 
In seasons of great peril 

'Tis good that one bear sway ; 
Then choose we a Dictator, 

Whom all men shall obey. 
Camerium knows how deeply 

The sword of Aulus bites, 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 91 

And all our city calls liim 

The man of seventy fights. 
Then let him be Dictator 

For six months and no more, 
And have a Master of the Knights, ) 

And axes twenty-four." 

IX. 

So Aiilus was Dictator, 

The man of seventy fights : 
He made ^butius Elva 

His Master of the Knights. 
On the third morn thereafter, 

At dawning of the day, 
Did Aulus and ^butius 

Set forth with their array. 
Sempronius Atratinus 

Was left in charge at home 
With boys, and with grey-headed men, '^ 

To keep the walls of Rome. 
Hard by the Lake Regillus 

Our camp was pitched at night : 
Eastward a mile the Latines lay. 

Under the Porcian height. 
Ear over hill and valley 

Their mighty host was spread ; 



92 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And with their thousand watch-fires 
The midnight sky was red. 

X. 

Up rose the golden morning 

Over the Porcian height, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 

Marked evermore with white, 
Not without secret trouble 

Our bravest saw the foes ; 
For girt by threescore thousand spears, ^ 

The thirty standards rose. 
From every warlike city 

That boasts the Latian name, 
Foredoomed to dogs and vultures, 

That gallant army came ; 
From Setia's purple vineyards, 

From jSTorba's ancient wall, 
From the white streets of Tusculum, ^ 

The proudest town of all ; 
From where the Witch's Fortress 

O'erhangs the dark blue seas ; 
From tlie still glassy lake that sleeps '1) 

Beneath Aricia's trees — 
Those trees in whose dim shadow 

The ghastly priest doth reign, 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 93 

The priest who slew the slayer, 

And shall himself be slain ; 
From the drear banks of XJfens, 

Where flights of marsh-fowl play, 
And buffaloes lie wallowing 

Through the hot summer's day ; 
From the gigantic watch-towers, 

No work of earthly men, 
Whence Cora's sentinels o'erlooked 

The never-ending fen ; 
From the Laurentian jungle, 

The wild hog's reedy home ; 
From the green steeps whence Anio leaps 
In floods of snow-white foam. 

XI. 

Aricia, Cora, Norba, 

Velitr^, with the might 
Of Setia and of Tusculum, 

Were marshalled on the right : 
The leader was Mamilius, 

Prince of the Lat^an name ; 
Upon his head a helmet 

Of red gold shone like flame : 
High on a gallant charger 
Of dark-grey hue he rode : 



94 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Over his gilded armour 

A vest of purple flowed, 
Woven in the land of sunrise '*' 

By Syria's dark-browed daughters, 
And by the sails of Carthage brought 

Far o'er the southern waters. 

XII. 

Lavinium and Laurentum 

Had on the left their post, 
With all the baniiers of the marsh, ^ 

And banners of the coast. 
Their leader was false Sextus, 

That wrought the deed of shame : 
With restless pace and haggard face 

To his last field he came. 
Men said he saw strange visions 

Which none beside might see, 
And that strange sounds were in his ears % 

Which none might hear but he. 
A woman fair and stately, 

But pale as are the dead, 
Oft through the watches of the night ^ 

Sat spinning by his bed. 
And as she plied the distaff. 

In a sweet voice and low, 



THE BATTLE OP THE LAKE REGILLTJS. 95 

She sang of great old houses, 

And fights fought long ago. 
So spun she, and so sang she, 

Until the east was grey, 
Then pointed to her bleeding breast, 

And shrieked, and fled away. 

xin. 

But in the centre thickest 

Were ranged the shields of foes, 
And from the centre loudest 

The cry of battle rose. 
There Tibur marched and Pedum 

Beneath proud Tarquin's rule, 
And Ferentinum of the rock, / 

And Gabii of the pool. 
There rode the Volscian succours : 

There, in a dark stern ring, 
The Roman exiles gathered close f 

Around .the ancient king. 
Though white as Mount Soracte, 

When winter nights are long, 
His beard flowed down o'er mail and belt, - 

His heart and hand were stronof ; 
Under his hoary eyebrows 

Still flashed forth quenchless rage. 



96 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And, if the lance shook in his gripe, 
'Twas more with hate than age. 

Close at his side was Titus 
On an Apulian steed, 

Titus, the youngest Tarquin, 
Too good for such a breed. 



XIV. 

Now on each side the leaders 

Give signal for the charge ; 
And on each side the footmen 

Strode on with lance and targe ; 
And on each side the horsemen 

Struck tlieir spurs deej) in gore; 
And front t© front the armies 

Met with a mighty roar : 
And under that great battle 

The earth with blood was red ; 
And, like the Pomptine fog at mom, 

The dust hung overhead ; 
And louder still and louder 

Rose from the darkened field 
The braying of the war-horns, 

The clang of sword and shield. 
The rush of squadrons sweeping 

Like whirlwinds o'er the plain, 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE BEGILLXIS. 97 

The shouting of the slayers, 
And screeching of the slain. 

XV. 

False Sextus rode out foremost ; 
■ His look was high and bold ; 
His corselet was of bison's hide, 

Plated with steel and gold. 
As glares the famished eagle 

From the Digentian rock 
On a choice lamb that bounds alone / 

Before Bandusia's flock, 
Herminius glared on Sextus, 

And came with eagle speed, • 
Herminius on black Auster, 

Brave champion on brave steed ; 
In his right hand the broadsword 

That kept the bridge so well. 
And on his helm the crown he won 

When proud Fidense felL 
Woe to the maid whose lover 

Shall cross his path to-day ! 
False Sextus saw, and trembled, 

And turned, and fled away. 
As turns, as flies, the woodman 

In the Calabrian brake, 



&8 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

When throiigli the reeds gleams the round 
eye f 

Of that fell speckled snake ; 
So turned, so fled^ false Sextus, 

And hid him in the rear, 
Behmd the dark Lavinian ranks, V 

Bristling with crest and spear, 

XVI. 

But far to north ^^butius, 

The Master of the Knights, 
Gave Tubero of Norba 

To feed the Porcian kites. 
Kext under those red horse-hoofs 

riaccus of Setia lay ; 
Better had he been pruning 

Among his elms that day. 
Mamilius saw the slaughter, 

And tossed his golden crest, 
And towards the Master of the Knights ' 

Through the thick battle pressed 
^butius smote Mamilius 

So fiercely on the shield 
That the great lord of Tusculum 

Well nigh rolled on the held. 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 99 

Mamilius smote ^butius, 

With a good aim and true, 
Just where the neck and shoulder join, / 
And pierced him through and through ; 
And brave JEbutius Elva 

Fell swooning to the ground \ 
But a thick wall of bucklers 
Encompassed him around. 
His clients from the battle 

Bare him some little space, 
And filled a helm from the dark lake, ; 

And bathed his brow and face ; /' 
And when at last he opened 

His swimming eyes to light, 
Men say, the earliest word he spake 
Was, " Friends, how goes the fight % " 

XVII. 

But meanwhile in the centre 

Great deeds of arms were wrought ; 
There Aulus the Dictator 

And there Valerius fought 
Aulus with his good broadsword 

A bloody passage cleared 
To where, amidst the thickest foes, 

He saw the long white beard. 



100 LA.YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Flat lighted that good broadsword 

Upon proud Tarquin's head. 
He dropped the lance : he dropped the 
reins : 

He fell as fall the dead. 
Down Aulus s])rings to slay him, 

With eyes like coals of fire ; 
But faster Titus hath sprung down, ; 

And hath bestrode his sire. 
Latian captains, Eoman knights, 

Fast down to earth they spring, 
And hand to hand they fight on foot 

Around the ancient king. 
First Titus gave tall Cceso 

A death wound in the face : 
Tall Cseso was the bravest man 5 

Of the brave Fabian race : 
Aulus slew Kex of Gabii, 

The priest of Juno's shrine ; 
Valerius smote down Julius, 

Of Rome's great Julian line ; 
Julius, who left his mansion 

High on the Velian hill, 
And through all turns of weal and woe " 

Followed proud Tarquin still. 
Now right across proud Tarquin 



101 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLTTS. 

A corpse was Julius laid ; 
And Titus groaned with rage and grief, / 

And at Valerius made. 
Valerius struck at Titus, 

And lopped off half his crest ; 
But Titus stabbed Valerius 

A span deep in the breast. 
Like a mast snapped by the tempest, f 

Valerius reeled and fell. 
Ah ! woe is me for the good house 

That loves the people well I 
Then shouted loud the Latines ; 
And with one rush they bore 
The struggling Romans backward 
Three lances' length and more : 
And up they took proud Tarquin, 

And laid him on a shield, 
And four strong yeomen bare him, 
Still senseless, from the held. 



XVIII. 

But fiercer grew the fighting 

Around Valerius dead ; 
For Titus dragged him by the foot, 

And Aulus by the head. 



102 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

" On, Latines, on ! " quoth Titus, 

" See bow the rebels fly ! " 
" Romans, stand tirni ! " quoth Aulus, 

" And win this fight or die ! 
They must not give Valerius 

To raven and to kite ; 
For aye Valerius loathed the wrong, ^ 

And aye upheld the right : 
And for your wives and babies 

In the front rank he fell. 
Now play the men for the good house 

That loves the people well ! " 



XIX. 

Then tenfold round the body 

The roar of battle rose, 
Like tlie roar of a burning forest, '' 

When a strong north wind blows. 
Now backward, and now forward, 

Rocked furiously the fray, 
Till none could see Valerius, 

And none wist where he lay. 
For shivered arms and ensigns 

Were heaped there in a mound, 
And corpses stiff, and dying men 

Tliat writhed and gnawed the ground ; 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE KEGILLUS. 103 

And wounded liorses kicking, 

And snorting purple foam : 
flight well did such a couch befit 

A Consular of Rome. 

XX. 

But north looked the Dictator ; 

North looked he long and hard ; 
And spake to Caius Cossus, 

The Captain of his Guard : 
*' Caius, of all the Romans 

Thou hast the keenest sight ; 
Say, what through yonder storm of dust 

Comes from the Latian right 1 " 

XXI. 

Then answered Caius Cossus, 

'•I see an evil sight ; 
The banner of proud Tusculum 

Comes from the Latian right : 
I see the plumed horsemen ; 

And far before the rest 
I see the dark-grey charger, 

I see the purple vest ; 
I see the golden helmet 

That shines far off like flame : 



104 IiAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

So ever rides Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name/' 

XXII, 

" Now hearken, Cains Cossus : 

Spring on thy horse's back ; 
Eide as the wolves of Apennine 

"Were all upon thy track ; 
Haste to our southward battle : 

And never draw thy rein 
Until thou find Herminius, 

And bid him come amain." 

XXIII. 

So Aulus spake, and turned him 

Again to that fierce strife ; 
And Caius Cossus mounted, 

And rode for death and life. 
Loud clanged beneath his horse-hoofs 

The helmets of the dead, 
And many a curdling pool of blood 1 

Splashed him from heel to head. 
So came he far to southward. 

Where fought the Roman host, 
Against the banners of the marsh 

Ajid banners of the coast. 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLTJS. lOS 

Like corn before the sickle 

The stout Lavinians fell, 
Beneath the edge of the true sword 

That kept the bridge so well. 

XXIV. 

" Herminius ! Aulus greets thee ; 

He bids thee come with speed, 
To help our central battle, 

For sore is there our need. 
There wars the youngest Tarquin, 

And there the Crest of Flame, 
The Tusculan Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name. 
Valerius hath fallen fighting 

In front of our array : 
And Aulus of the seventy fields f 

Alone upholds the day." 

XXV. 

Herminius beat his bosom : 

But never a word he spake. 7 
He clapped his hand on Auster's mane : 

He gave the reins a shake, 
Away, away went Auster, 

Like an arrow from the bow : 7 



r 



106 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Black Auster was the fleetest steed 
From Autidus to Po. 

XXVI. 

Right glad were all the E-omans 

Who, in that hour of dread, 
Against great odds bare up the war 

Around Valerius dead, 
When from the south the cheering 

Rose with a mighty swell ; 
" Herminius comes, Herminius, 

Who kept the bridge so well ! " 

XXVII. 

Mamilius spied Herminius, 

And dashed across the way. 
** Herminius ! I have sought thee 

Through many a bloody day. 
One of us two, Herminius, 

Shall never more go home. 
I will lay on for Tusculum, "^ 

And lay thou on for Rome I " 

XXVIII. 

All round them paused the battlei 
While met in mortal fray 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 107 

The Boraan and the Tusculan, 

The horses black and grey. 
Herminins smote Mamilius 

Through breast-plate and through breast; 
And fast flowed out the purple blood 

Over the purple vest. 
Mamilius smote Herminius 

Through head-piece and through head ; 
And side by side those chiefs of pride 

Together fell down dead. 
Down fell they dead together 

In a great lake of gore ; 
And still stood all who saw them fall 

While men miglit count a score. 

XXIX. 

Fast, fast, with heels wild spurning, 

The dark-grey charger fled : 
He burst through ranks of fighting men, j 

He sprang o'er heaps of dead. 
His bridle far out-streaming, 

His flanks all blood and foam, 
He sought the southern mountains, 

The mountains of his home. 
The pass was steep and rugged. 

The wolves they howled and whined • 



108 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

But he ran like a whirlwind up the pass. 

And he left the woh^es behind. 
Through many a startled hamlet 

Thundered his flying feet ; 
He rushed through the gate of Tusculum, 

He rushed up the long white street ; 7 
He rushed by tower and temple, 

And paused not from his race 
Till he stood before his master's door / 

In the stately market-place. '/ 
And straightway round him gathered 

A pale and trembling crowd, 
And when they knew him, cries of rage 5 

Brake forth, and wailing loud ; 
And women rent their tresses 

For their great prince's fall ; 
And old men girt on their old swords, /^ 

And went to man the wall. 

XXX. 

But, like a graven image, 
Black Auster kept his place, 

And ever wistfully he looked d 
Into his master's face. 

The raven mane that daily, 

With pats and fond caresses, '] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 109 

The young Herminia washed and combed . 

And twined in even tresses, "I 
And decked with coloured ribands 

From her own gay attire, 
Hung sadly o'er her father's corpse -/ 

In carnage and in mire. 
Forth with a shout sprang Titus, 

And seized black Auster's rein. 
Then Aulus sware a fearful oath, 5 

And ran at him amain. 
"The furies of thy brother 

With me and mine abide, 
If one of your accursed house 

Upon black Auster ride ! " 
As on an Alpine watch-tower 

From heaven comes down the flame, 
Full on tlie neck of Titus 

The blade of Aulus came : 
And out the red blood spouted, 

In a wide arch and tall, 
As spouts a fountain in the court 

Of some rich Capuan's hall. 
The knees of all the Latines 

Were loosened with dismay 
When dead, on dead Herminius, 

The bravest Tarquin lay. 



110 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

XXXI. 

And Aulus the Dictator 

Stroked A lister's rav^eri mane, 

With heed he looked unto the girths, 
With heed unto the rein. 

" Now hear me well, black Auster, 
Into yon thick array ; 

And thou and I will have revenjre 
For thy good lord this day." 



XXXII. 

So spake he ; and was buckling 

Tighter black Auster's band, 
When he was aware of a princely pair 

That rode at his right hand. 
So like they were, no mortal 

Might one from other know : 
White as snow their armour was : 

Their steeds were white as snow. 
Never on earthly anvil 

Did such rare armour gleam ; 
And never did such gallant steeds 

Drink of an earthly stream. 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGLLLUS. Ill 
XXXIIL 

And all who saw them trembled, 

And pale grew every cheek ; 
And Aulus the Dictator 

Scarce gathered voice to speak. 
*' Say by what name men call you ? 

What cit}'- is your home ? 
And wherefore ride ye in such guise 

Before the ranks of Rome 1 " 



XXXIV. 

** By many names men call us ; 

In many lands we dwell : 
Well Samothracia knows us ; 

Gyrene knows us well. 
Our house in gay Tarentum 

Is hung each morn with fiowera: 
High o'er the mast of Syracuse 

Our marble portal towers ; 
But by the proud Eurotas 

Is our dear native home ; 
And for the right we come to fight / 

Before the ranks of Kome." 



112 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

XXXV. 

So answered those strange horsemen. 

And each couched low his spear ; 
And forthwith all the ranks of Rom© / 

Were bold, and of good cheer : 
And on the thirty armies 

Came wonder and affright, 
And Ardea wavered on the left, ^ 

And Cora on the right. 
" Rome to the charge ! " cried Aulus ; 

" The foe begins to yield ! 
Charge for the hearth of Vesta ! 

Charge for the Golden Shield ! 
Let no man stop to plunder, 

But slay, and slay, and slay ; 
The gods who live for ever 

Are on our side to-day." 

XXXVI. 

Then the fierce trumpet-flourish 
From eartli to heaven arose. 

The kites know well the long stern swell 
That bids the Romans close. 

Then the good sword of Aulus 
Was lifted up to slay : 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLTJS, 113 

Then, like a crag clown Apennine, 

Rushed Auster through the fray. 
Eut under those strange horsemen 

Still thicker lay the slain ; 
And after those strange horses 
Black Auster toiled in vain. 
Behind them Rome's long battle 

Came rolling on the foe, 
Ensigns dancing wild above, 

Blades all in line below. 
So comes the Po in flood-time 

Upon the Celtic plain : 
So comes the squall, blacker than night, 

Upon the Adrian main. 
Now, by our Sire Quirinus, 

It was a goodly sight 
To see the thirty standards 

Swept down the tide of flight. 
So flies the spray of Adria 

When the black squall doth blow, 
So corn-sheaves in the flood-time 

Spin down the whirling Po. 
False Sextus to the mountains 

Turned first his horse's head ; 
And fast fled Ferentinum, 
And fast Lanuvium fled. 



114 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

The horsemen of Nomeiituni 

Spurred hard out of the fray ; 
The footmen of Yelitrae 

Threw shiekl and spear away. 
And underfoot was trampled, 

Amidst the mud and gore, 
The banner of proud Tusculunr, 7 

That never stooped befoi-e : 
And down went Flavins Faustus, 

Who led his stately ranks 
From where the apple blossoms ware 

On Anio's echoing bunks, 
And Tullus of Arpinum, 

Chief of the Yolscian aids, 
And Metius with the long fair curls, ' 

The love of Anxur's maids. 
And the white head of Vulso, 

The great Arician seer, 
And Nepos of Laurentum, 

The hunter of the deer ; 
And in the back false Sextus 

Felt the good Roman steel, 
And wriggling in the dust he died 

Like a worm beneath the wheel: 
And fliers and pursuers 

Were mingled in a mass • 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 115 

And far away the battle 

Went roaring through the pass. 

XXXVII. 

Sempronius Atratinus 

Sate in the Eastern Gate, 
Beside him were three Fathers, 

Each in his chair of state; 
Fabius, whose nine stout grandsons 

That day were in the field, 
And Manlius, eldest of the Twelve f 

Who kept the Golden Shield; 
And Sergius, the High Pontiff, 

For wisdom far renowned ; 
In all Etruria's colleges 

Was no such Pontiff found. 
And all around the portal, 

And high above the wall. 
Stood a great throng of people, 

But sad and silent all ; 
Young lads, and stooping elders 
That might not bear the mail, 
Matrons with lips that quivered. 

And maids with faces pale. 

Since the first gleam of daylight, 

Sempronius had not ceased 



116 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

To listen for the rushing 

Of horse-hoofs from the east. 
The mist of eve was rising, 

The sun was hastening down, 
When he was aware of a princely pair 

Fast pricking towards the town. 
So like they were, man never 

Saw twins so like before ; 
Red with gore their armour was, 

Their steeds were red with gore. 



XXXVIII. 

" Hail to the great Asylum ! 

Hail to the hill-tops seven 1 ^ 
Hail to the lire that burns for aye, : 

And the shield that fell from heaven I 1 
This day, by Lake Regillus, 

Under the Porcian height, 
All in the lands of Tusculum ^ 

Was fought a glorious fight. 
To-morrow your Dictator 

Shall bring in triumph home 
The spoils of thirty cities 

To deck the shrines of Rome 1 " 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 117 
XXXIX. 

Then burst from that great concourse 

A shout that shook the towers, 
And some ran north, and some ran south, 

Crying, "The day is ours ! " 
But on rode these strange horsemen, 

With slow and lordly pace ; 
And none who saw their bearing 

Durst ask their name or race. 
On rode they to the Forum, 

While laurel boughs and flowers. 
From house-tops and from windows, 

Fell on their crests in showers. 
When they drew nigh to Vesta, 

They vaulted down amain, 
And washed their horses in the well 

That springs by Vesta's fane. 
And straight again they mounted, 

And rode to Vesta's door ; 
Then, like a blast, away they passed, " 

And no man saw them more. 

XL. 

And all the people trembled, 
And pale grew every cheek ; 



118 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And Sergius the High Pontiff 

Alone found voice to speak : 
" The gods who live for ever 

Have fought for Rome to-day ! 
These be the Great Twin Bretliren 

To whom the Dorians pray. 
Back comes the cliief in triumph, 

Who, in the hour of fight, 
Hath seen the Great Twin Brethren 

In harness on liis right. 
Safe comes the shij) to haven, 

Through billows and through gales, 
If once the Great Twin Brethren 

Sit shining on the sails. 
Wherefore tliey washed theii- horses 

In Vesta's holy well. 
Wherefore they rode to Vesta's door, 

I know, but may not tell. 
Here, hard by Vesta's Temple, 

Build we a stately dome 
Unto the Great Twin Bretliren 

Who fought so well for Rome. 
And when the months returning 

Bring back this day of fight, 
' -. The proud Ides of Quintilis, 

Mark(>d evermore with white, 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE BEGILLUS. 119 

Unto tlie Great Twin Brethren 

Let all the people throng, 
With chaplets and with offerings, 

With music and with song ; 
And let the doors and windows 

Be hung witli garlands all, 
And let the Knights be sunnnoned 

To Mars without the wall ; 
Thence let them ride in purple 
With joyous trumpet-sound, 
Each mounted on his war-horse, 

And each with olive crowned ; 
And pass in solemn order 
Before the sacred dome, 
Where dwell the Great Twin Brethren 
Who fought so well for Home ! ' 



120 LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 



VIRGINIA. 



A COLLECTION consisting exclusively of war-songs 
would give an imperfect, or rather an erroneous, 
notion of the spirit of the old Latin ballads. The 
Patricians, during more than a century after the 
expulsion of the Kings, held all the high military 
commands. A Plebeian, even though, like Lucius 
Siccius, he were distinguished by his valour and 
knowledge of war, could serve only in subordinate 
posts. A minstrel, therefore, who wished to cele- 
brate the early triumphs of his country, could 
hardly take any but Patricians for his heroes. 
The warriors who are mentioned in the two pre- 
ceding lays, Horatius, Lartius, Herniinius, Aulus 
Postumius, ^butius Elva, Sempronius Atratinus, 
Valerius Poplicola, were all menil«eis of the 
dominant order ; and a poet who was singing their 
praises, whatever his own political opinions might 
be, would naturally abstain from insulting the 
class to which they belonged, and tVoni reliecting 



VIRGINIA. 121 

on the system which had placed such men at the 
head of the legions of the commonwealth. 

But there was a class of compositions in which 
the great families were by no means so courteously 
treated. No parts of early Roman history are 
richer with poetical colouring than those which 
relate to the long contest between the privileged 
houses and the commonalty. The population of 
Rome was, from a very early period, divided into 
hereditary castes, which, indeed, readily united to 
repel foreign enemies, bub which regarded each 
other, dining many yeai^, with bitter animosity. 
Between those castes there was a barrier hardly 
less strong than that which, at Venice, parted the 
members of the Great Council from their country- 
men. In some res[)ects, indeed, the line which 
separated an Icilius or a Duilius from a Postu- 
mius or a Fabins was even more deeply marked 
than thit which separated the rower of a gondola 
from a Oontarini or a Morosini. At Venice the 
distinction was merely civil. At Rome it was 
both civil and religious. Among the grievances 
under which the Plebeians suffered, three were 
felt as peculiarly severe. They were excluded 
from the highest magistracies, they were excluded 
from all share in the public lands, and tliey were 



iTJ. LAYS OF ANCIENT ROMK. 

i:ioiuid down to tlie dust by partial and barbarous 
legislation touching pecuniary contracts. The 
ruling class in Rome was a moneyed class ; and it 
made and administered the laws with a view 
solely to its own interest. Thus the relation be- 
tween lender and borrower was mixed up with the 
relation between sovereign and subject. The 
great men held a large portion of the community 
in dependence by means of advances at enormous 
usury. The law of debt, framed by creditors, and 
for the protection of creditors, was the most 
horrible that has ever been known among men. 
The liberty, and even the life, of the insolvent 
were at the mercy of the Patrician money-lenders. 
Children often became slaves in consequence of 
the misfortunes of their parents. The debtor was 
imprisoned, not in a public gaol under the care of 
impartial public functionaries, but iu a private 
workhouse belonging to the creditor. Frightful 
stories were told respecting these dungeons. Tt 
was said that torture and l-^rutal violation wero 
common ; that tight stocks, heavy chains, scanty 
measures of food, were used to punish wretches 
guilty of nothing but poverty ; and that brave 
soldiers, whose breasts were covered with honour- 
able scars, were often marked still more 



VIRGINIA. 123 

deeply on the back by the scourges of high-boni 
usurers. 

The Plebeians were, however, not wholly with- 
out constitutional rights. From an early period 
they had been admitted to some share of political 
power. They were enrolled each in his century, 
and were allowed a share, considerable though not 
proportioned to theii* numerical strength, in the 
disposal of those high dignities from which they 
were themselves excluded. Thus their position 
bore some resemblance to that of the Irish 
Catholics during the interval between the year 
1792 and the year 1829. The Plebeians had also 
the privilege of annually appointing officers, 
named Tribunes, who had no active share in the 
government of the Commonwealth, but who, by 
degrees, acquired a power formidable even to the 
ablest and most resolute Consuls and Dictators. 
The person of the Tribune was inviolable ; and 
though he could directly eflpect little, he could 
obstruct every tiling. 

During more than a century after the institution 
of the Tribuneship, the Commons struggled man- 
fully for the removal of the grievances under which 
they laboured ; and, in spite of many checks and 
reverses, succeeded in wringing concession after 



124 LAYS OP ANCIENT ROME. 

concession from the stubborn aristocracy. At 
length, in the year of the city 378, both parties 
mustered their whole strength for their last and 
most desperate conflict. The popular and active 
Tribune, Caius Licinius, proposed the three me- 
morable laws which are called by his name, and 
which were intended to redress the three great 
evils of which the Plebeians complained. He was 
supported, with eminent ability and firmness, by 
his colleague, Lucius Sextius. The struggle ap- 
pears to have been the fiercest that ever in any 
community terminated without an appeal to arms. 
If such a contest had raged in any Greek city, the 
streets would have run with blood. But, even in 
the paroxysms of faction, the Etonian retained his 
gravity, his respect for law, and his tenderness for 
the lives of his fellow-citizens. Year after year 
Licinius and Sextius were re-elected Tribunes. 
Year after year, if the narrative which has come 
down to us is to be trusted, they continued to 
exert, to the full extent, their power of stopping 
the whole machine of government. No curule 
magistrates could be chosen ; no military muster 
could be hel(]. We know too little of the state of 
Rome in those days to be able to conjecture how, 
during that long anarchy, the peace was kept, and 



VIRGINIA. 125 

ordinary Justice administered between man and 
man. The animosity of both parties rose to the 
greatest height. The excitement, we may well 
suppose, would have been peculiarly intense at the 
annual election of Tribunes. On such occasions 
there can be little doubt that the great families did 
all that could be done, by threats and caresses, to 
break the union of the Plebeians. That union, 
however, proved indissoluble. At length the good 
cause triumphed. The Licinian laws were carried. 
Lucius Sextius was the first Plebeian Consul, Caius 
Licinius the third. 

The results of this great change were singularly 
happy and glorious. Two centuries of prosperity, 
harmony, and victory followed the reconciliation 
of the orders. IVJ^n who remembered Rome en- 
gaged in waging petty wars almost within sight of 
the Capitol lived to see her the mistress of Italy. 
While the disabilities of the Plebeians continued 
she was scarcely able to maintain her ground 
against the Volscians and Hernicans. When 
those disabilities were removed she rapidly became 
more than a match for Carthage and Macedon, 

Daring the great Licinian contest the Plebeian 
poets were, doubtless, not silent. Even in mo- 
dern times songs have been by no means without 



126 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

influence on public affairs ; and we may therefore 
infer that, in a society where printing was un- 
known, and where books were rare, a pathetic or 
humorous party ballad must have produced effects 
such as we can but faintly conceive. It is certain 
that satirical poems were common at Rome from a 
very early period. The rustics, who lived at a 
distance fiom the seat of government, and took 
little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to theii' 
petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse. 
The lampoons of the city were doubtless of a 
higher order ; and their sting was early felt by the 
nobility. For in the Twelve Tables, long before 
the time of the Licinian laws, a severe punishment 
was denounced against the citizen who should 
compose or recite verses reflecting on another. 
Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in 
which the Latin poets, whose works have come 
down to us, were not mere imitators of foreign 
models ; and it is therefore the only sort of com- 
position in which they have never been rivalled. 
It was not, like their tragedy, their comedy, their 
epic and lyric poetry, a hothouse plant which, in 
return for assiduous and skilful culture, gave only 
scanty and sickly fruits. It was hardy and full of 
sap ; and in all the various juices which it yielded 



VIRGINIA. 127 

might be distinguished the flavour of the Ausonian 
soil. "Satire," says Quinctilian, with just pride, 
" is all our own." Satire sprang, in truth, naturally 
from the constitution of the Roman government 
and from the spirit of the Roman people ; and, 
though at length subjected to metrical rules derived 
from Greece, retained to the last an essentially 
Roman character. Lucilius was the earliest 
satirist whose works were held in esteem under 
the Caesars. But many years before Lucilius was 
born, ISTsevius had been flung into a dungeon, and 
guarded there with circumstances of unusual 
rigour, on account of the bitter lines in which he 
had attacked the great Csecilian family. The 
genius and spirit of the Roman satirist survived 
the liberty of their country, and were not extin- 
guished by the cruel despotism of the Julian and 
Flavian Emperors. The great poet who told the 
story of Domitian's turbot was the legitimate 
successor of those forgotten minstrels whose songs 
animated the factions of the infant Republic. 

These minstrels, as Niebuhr has remarked, 
appear to have generally taken the popular side. 
We can hardly be mistaken in supposing that, at 
the great crisis of the civil conflict, they employed 
themselves in versifying all the most powerful and 



128 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME, 

virulent speeches of the Tribunes, and in heaping 
abuse on the leaders of the aristocracy. Every 
personal defect, every domestic scandal, every 
tradition dishonourable to a noble house, would be 
sought out, brouglit into notice, and exaggerated. 
The illustrious head of the aristocratieal party, 
Marcus Furius Camillus, might perhaps be, in 
vsome measure, protected by his venerable age and 
by the memory of his great services to the State. 
But Appius Claudius Crassus enjoyed no such im- 
munity. He was descended from a long line of 
ancestors distinguished by their haughty demeanour, 
and by the inflexibility with which they had with- 
stood all the demands of the Plebeian order. While 
the political conduct and the deportment of the 
Claudian nobles drew upon them tlie fiercest public 
hatred, they were accused of wanting, if any credit 
is due to the early history of Rome, a class of 
qualities which, in the military commonwealth, is 
sutficient to cover a multitude of offences. The 
chiefs of the family appear to have been eloquent, 
versed in civil business, and learned after the 
fashion of their age ; but in war they were not dis- 
tinguished by skill or valour. Some of them, as if 
conscious where their weakness lay, had, when 
filling the highest magistracies, taken internal 



VIEGINIA. 129 

administration as their department of public busi- 
ness, and left the military command to their 
colleagues. One of them had been intrusted with 
an army, and had failed ignominiously. None cf 
them had been honoured with a triumph. None 
of them had achieved any martial exploit, suc]i 
as those by which Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, 
Titas Quinctius Capitolinus, Aulus Cornelius Cos- 
sus, and, above all, the great Camillus, had extorted 
the reluctant esteem of the multitude. During the 
Licinian conflict, Appius Claudius Crassus signalised 
himself by the ability and severity with which li a 
harangued against the two great agitators. B » 
would naturally, tlierefore, be the favourite mark 
of the Plebeian satirists ; nor would they have been 
at a loss to find a point on which he was open to 
attack. 

His grandfather, called, like himself, Appins 
Claudius, had left a name as much detested as 
that of Sextus Tarquinius. This elder Appius hnd 
been Consul more than seventy years before the 
introduction of the Licinian laws. By availin;; 
himself of a singular crisis in public feeling, he 
had obtained the consent of the Commons to tne 
abolition of the tribuneship, and had been the chief 
of that Council of Ten to which the whoJe direct^.on 



1:>0 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

of the State had been committed. In a few- 
months his administration had become univer.^allj 
odious. It ]]ad been swept away by an irresistible 
outbreak of poi)ular fury ; and its memory was still 
held in abhorrence by the whole city. The imme- 
diate cause of the downfall of this execrable govern- 
ment was said to have been an attempt made by 
Appius Claudius upon the chastity of a beautiful 
young girl of humble bii-th. The story ran that 
the Decemvir, unable to succeed by bribes and 
solicitations, resorted to an outrageous act of 
tyranny. A vile de})endent of the Claudian house 
laid claim to the damsel as his slave. The cause 
was brought before the tribunal of Appius. The 
wicked magistrate, in defiance of the clearest 
proofs, gave judgment for the claimant. But the 
girl's father, a brave soldier, saved her from servi- 
tude and dishonour by stabbing her to the heart in 
the sight of the whole Forum. That blow was the 
signal for a general explosion. Camp and city- 
rose at once ; the Ten were pulled down ; the Tri- 
buneship was re-established ; and Appius escaped 
the hands of the executioner only by a volunta,ry 
death. 

It can hardly be doubted that a story so admir- 
ably adapted to the purposes both of the poet and 



VIRGINIA. 131 

of the demagogue would be eagerly seized upon by 
minstrels burning with hatred against the Patri- 
cian order, against the Claudian house, and 
especially against the grandson and namesake of 
the ijifamous Decemvir. 

In order that the reader may judge fairly of 
these fragments of the lay of Virginia, he must 
imagine himself a Plebeian "^vho has just voted for 
the re-election of Sextius and Licinius. All the 
power of the Patricians has been exerted to throw 
out the two great champions of the Commons. 
Every Postumius, ^^^milius, and Cornelius has 
used his influence to the utmost. Debtors have 
been let out of the workhouses on condition of 
voting against the men of the people : clients have 
been posted to hiss and interrupt the favourite 
candidates : Appius Claudius Crassus has spoken 
with more than his usual eloquence and asperity : 
all has been in vain ; Licinius and Sextius have a 
fifth time carried all the tribes : work is suspended : 
the booths are closed : the Plebeians bear on their 
shoulders the two chami)ions of liberty through the 
Forum. Just at this moment it is announced that 
a popular poet, a zealous adherent of the Tribunes,, 
has made a new song which will cut the Claudian 
nobles to the heart. The crowd gathers round him^ 



132 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

and calls on him to recite it. He takes his stand 
on the spot where, according to tradition, Virginia, 
more than seventy years ago, was seized by the 
pandar of Appius, and he begins his story. 



133 



VIRGINIA. 

FRAGMENTS OF A LAY SUNG IN THE FORUM ON 
THE DAY WHEREON LUCIUS SEXTIUS SEXTINUS 
LATER AN US AND CAIUS LICINIUS CALVUS STOLO 
WERE ELECTED TRIBUNES OF THE COMMONS 
THE FIFTH TIME, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY 
OCCLXXXII. 



Ye good men of the Commons, with loving hearts 

and true, 
Who stand by the bold Tribunes that still have 

stood by you, 
Come, make a circle round me, and mark my tale 

with care, 
A tale of what Rome once hath borne, of what 

Rome yet may bear. 
This is no Grecian fable, of fountains running 

wine, 
Of maids with snaky tresses, or sailors turned to 

swine. 
Here, in this very Forum, under the noonday sun, 



134 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. * 

■ i 
In sight of all the people, the bloody deed was 

done. 5 

Old men still creep among us who saw that fearful 

Just seventy years and seven ago, when the wicked • 

Ten bare sway. | 

Of all the wicked Ten still the names are held i 

accursed, ; 

And of all the wicked Ten Appius Claudius was the 

worst. 
He stalked along the Forum like King Tarquin in 

his pride : 
Twelve axes waited on him, six marching on a 

side ; \ 

The townsmen shrank to right and left, and eyed 

askance with fear 
His lowering brow, his curling mouth, which 

always seemed to sneer : 
That brow of hate, that mouth of scorn, marks all 

the kindred still ; I 

For never was there Claudius yet but wished the 

Commons ill : 
Nor lacks he fit attendance ; for close behind his ' 

heels, 
With outstretched chin and crouching pace, the 

client JNIarcus steals, 



VIRGINIA. 135 

His loins girt up to run with speed, be trie errand 

what it may, 
And the smile flickering on his cheek, for aught 

his lord may say, 
Such varlets pimp and jest for hire among the 

lying Greeks : 
Such varlets still are paid to hoot when brave 

Licinius speaks. 
Where'er ye shed the honey, the buzzing flies wil' 

crowd ; 
Where'er ye fling the carrion, the raven's croak is 

loud ; 
Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy 

pike ye see ; 
And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client 

still will be. 
Just then, as through one cloudless chink in a 

black stormy sky 
Shines out the dewy morning star, a fair young 

girl came by. 
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel 

on her arm, 
Home she went bounding from the school, nor 

dreamed of shame or harm ; 
And past those dreaded axes she innocently 

ran, 



136 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

With bright, frank brow that had not learned to 

blush at gaze of man ; 
And up the Sacred Street she turned, and, as she 

danced along, 
She warbled gaily to herself lines of the good old 

song. 
How foi a sport the princes came spurring from the 

caoip, 
And found Lucrece, combing the fleece, under the 

midnight lamp. 
The maiden sang as sings the lark, when up he 

darts his flight 
From his nest in the green April corn, to meet the 

morning light ; 
And Appius heard her sweet young voice, and saw 

her sweet young face. 
And loved her with the accursed love of his 

accursed race, 
And all along the Forum, and up the Sacred 

Street, 
His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small 

glancing feet. 



Over the Alban mountains the light of morning 
broke ; 



VIRGINIA. 1S7 

From all tlie roofs of the Seven Hills curled the 

thill wreaths of smoke : 
The city gates were opened; the Forum all 

alive, 
With buyers and with sellers was humming like a 

hive : 
Blithely on brass and timber the craftsman's stroke 

was ringing, 
And blithely o'er her panniers the market girl was 

singing, 
And blithely young Virginia came smiling from 

her home : 
Ah ! woe for young Virginia, the sweetest maid in 

Rome ! 
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel 

on her arm, 
Forth she went bounding to the school, nor dreamed 

of shame or harm. 
She crossed the Forum shining with stalls in alleys 

gay, 

And just^ had reached the very spot whereon I 

stand this day, 
When up the varlet Marcus came ; not such as 

when erewhile 
He crouched behind his patron's heels with the 

true client smile ; 



138 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

He came with lowering forehead, swollen features, 

and clenched fist. 
And strode across Virginia's path, and caught her 

by the wrist. 
Hard strove the frighted maiden, and screamed 

with look aghast ; 
And at her scream from right and left the folk 

came running fast ; 
The money-changer Crispus, with his tliin silver 

hairs, 
And Hanno from the stately booth glittering with 

Punic wares, 
And the strong smith Murjena, grasping a half- 
forged brand. 
And Volero the flesher, his cleaver in his 

hand. 
All came in wrath and wonder ; for all knew that 

fair child ; 
And, as she passed them twice a day, all kissed 

their hands and smiled ; 
And the strong smith Muraina gave Marcus such a 

blow, 
The caitiff reeled three paces back, and let the 

maiden go. 
Yet glared he fiercely round him, and growled in 



harsh, fell tone, 



VIRGINIA. 139 

" She's mine, and I will have her : I seek but for 

mine own : 
She is my slave, born in my house, and stolen 

away and sold, 
The year of the sore sickness, ere she was twelve 

hours old. 
'Twas in the sad September, the month of wail and 

fright, 
Two augurs were borne forth that morn ; the Consul 

died ere night, 
I wait on Ap])ius Claudius, I waited on his 

sire ; 
Let him who works the client wrong beware the 

patron's ire ! " 
So spake the vailet Marcus ; and dread and 

silence came 
On all the people at the sound of the great 

Claudian name. 
For then there was no Tribune to speak the word 

of nnght. 
Which makes the rich man tremble, and guards 

the poor mans right. 
There was no brave Licinius, no honest Sextius 

then ; 
But all the city, in great fear, obeyed the wicked 

Ten. 



\ iv ijaYo of ancient bome. 

Yet ere the varlet Marcus again might seize the 

maid, 
Who clung tight to Mursena's* skirt, and sobbed, 

and shrieked for aid, 
Forth through the throng of gazers the young 

Icilius pressed, 
And stamped his foot, and rent his gown, and 

smote upon his breast. 
And sprang upon that column by many a minstrel 

sung, 
Whereon tkree mouldering helmets, three rusting 

swoi'ds, are hung. 
And beckoned to the people, and in bold voice and 

clear 
Poured thick and fast the burning words which 

tyrants quake to hear. 
" Now, by your children's cradles, now by your 

fathers' graves, 
Be men to-day, Quirites, or be for ever 

slaves ! 
For this did Servius give us laws 1 For this did 

Lucrece bleed ? 
For this was the great vengeance wrought on 

Tarquin's evil seed ? 
For this did those false sons make red the axes of 

their sire ? 



For this did Scsevola's right hand hiss in the 

Tuscan fire ? 
Shall the vile fox-earth awe the race that stormed 

the lion's den 1 
Shall we, who could not brook one lord, crouch to 

the wicked Ten 1 
Oh, for that ancient spirit which curbed the Senate's 

will ! 
Oh, for the tents which in old time whitened the 

Sacred Hill ! 
In those brave days our fathers stood firmly side 

by side ; 
They faced the Marcian fury ; they tamed tlie 

Fabian pride : 
They drove the fiercest Quinctius an outcast fortli 

from Rome : 
Thfey sent the haughtiest Claudius with shivered 

fasces home. 
But what their care bequeathed us our madness 

flung away : 
All the ripe fruit of threescore years was blighted 

in a day. 
Exult, ye proud Patricians ! Tlie hard-fougl^ 

fight is o'er. 
We strove for honours — 'twas in vain : for freedom 

— 'tis uo more. ^ 



142 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

No crier to the polling summons the eager 

throng ; 
No Tribune breathes the word of might that guards 

the weak from wrong. 
Our very hearts, that were so high, sink down 

beneath your will. 
Riches, and lands, and power, and state — ye have 

them : — keep them still. 
Still keep the holy lillets ; still keep the purple 

gown. 
The axes, and the curule chair, the car, and laurel 

crown : 
Still press us for your cohorts, and, when the fight 

is done, 
Still fill your garners from the soil which our good 

swords have won. 
Still, like a spreading ulcer, which leech-craft may 

not cure. 
Let your foul usance eat away the substance of the 

poor. 
Still let your haggard debtors bear all their fathers 

bore ; 
Still let your dens of torment be noisome as of 

yore ; 
No fire when Tiber freezes ; no air in dog-star 

heat ; 



VIRGINIA. 143 

And store of rods for free-born backs, and holes 

for free-born feet. ' 

Heap heavier still the fetters ; bar closer still the 

grate ; 
Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruel 

hate. 
But, by the Shades beneath us, and by the Gods 

above, 
Add not unto your cruel hate your yet more cruel 

love ! 
Have ye not graceful ladies, whose spotless lineage 

springs 
From Consuls, and High Pontiffs, and ancient 

Alban kings 1 
Xiadies, who deign not on our paths to set their 

tender feet, 
Who from their cars look down with scorn upon 

the wondering street, 
Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smi'es 

behold, 
And breathe of Capuan odours, and shine with 

Spanish gold? 
Then leave the poor Plebeian his single tie to 

life— 
The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of 

wife. 



144 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed 

soul endures, 
The kiss, in which he half forgets even such a yoke 

as yours. 
Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's 

breast with pride ; 
Still let the bridegroom's arms infold an unpolluted 

bride. 
Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable 

shame, 
That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's 

blood to flame. 
Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our 

despair, 
And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much 

the wretched dare." 



Straightway Virginius led the maid a little 

space aside, 
To where the reeking shambles stood, piled up 

with horn and hide, 
Cloee to yon low dark archway, where, in a crimson 

flood, 
Leaps down to the great sewer the gurgling 

stream of blood, 



VIRGINIA. 145 

Hard by, a flesher on a block had laid his whittle 

down : 
Virginius caught the whittle up, and hid it in his 

gown. 
And then his eyes grew very dim, and his throat 

began to swell, 
And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, " Fare- 
well, sweet child ! Farewell ! 
Oh ! how I loved my darling I Though stern I 

sometimes be, 
To thee, thou know'st I was not so. Who could 

be so to thee ? 
And how my darling loved me ! How glad she 

was to hear 
My footstep on the threshold when I came back 

last year ! 
And how she danced with pleasure to see my civic 

crown. 
And took my sword, and hung it up, and brought 

me forth my gown ! 
Now, all those things are over — yes, all thy pretty 

ways, 
Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy snatches of old 

lays ; 
And none will grieve when I go forth, or smile 

when I retuiTi, 



I 

! 

146 LAYS OF ANCIKXT ROME. J 

V' 
Or watch beside the okl man's bed, or weep upon ' > 

his urn. , 

The house that was the happiest within the Roman j 

walls, i 

The house that envied not the wealth of Capua's 

marble halls, 
Now, for the brightness of thy smile, must have 

eternal gloom. 
And for the music of thy voice, the silence of the 

tonib. 
The time is come. See how he points his eager 

hand this way ! 
See how his eyes gloat on thy grief, like a kite's 

upon the prey ! 
With all his wit, he little deems, that, spurned, 

betrayed, bereft, 
The father hath in his despair one fearful refuge 

left. 
He little deems that in this hand I clutch what 

still can save 
Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the 

portion of the slave ; 
Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt ' 

and blow — 

7 

Foul outrage which thou knowest not, which thou j 
shalt never kn^vv. J 

i 



. VIRGINIA. 147 

Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give 

me one more kiss ; 
And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no 

way but this." 
With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in 

the side. 
And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one 

sob she died. 
Then, for a little moment, all people held their 

breath ; 
And through the crowded Forum was stillness as 

of death ; 
And in another moment brake forth from one and 

all 
A cry as if the Volscians were coming o'er the 

wall. , 

Some with averted faces shrieking fled home a- 

main ; 
Some ran to call a leech ; and some ran to lift the 

slain : 
Some felt her lips and little wrist, if life might 

there be found ; 
And some tore up their garments fast, and strove 

to stanch the wound. 
In vain they ran, and felt, and stanched ; for 

never truer blow 



148 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

That good right arm had dealt in fight against a 

Volscian foe. 
When Appius Claudius saw that deed, he shud- 
dered and sank down, 
And hid his lace some little space with the comer 

of his gown, 
Till, with white lips and bloodshot eyes, Yirginius 

tottered nigh. 
And stood before the judgment-seat, and held the 

knife on high. 
" Oh ! dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of 

the slain, 
By this dear blood I cry to you, do right between 

us twain ; 
And even as Appius Claudius hath dealt by me 

and mine, 
Deal you by Appius Claudius and all the Claudian 

line!" 
So spake the slayer of his child, and turned, and 

went his way ; 
But first he cast one haggard glance to where the 

body lay, 
And writhed, and groaned a fearful groan, and 

then, with steadfast feet. 
Strode right across the market-place unto the 

Sacred Street. 



VIRGINIA. 149 

Then up sprang Appius Claudius : " Stop him ; 

alive or dead ! 
Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who 

brings his head." 
He looked upon his clients ; but none would work 

his will. 
He looked upon his lictoi^s ; but they trembled, 

and stood still. 
And, as Virginias through the press his way in 

silence cleft, 
Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and 

left. 
And he hath passed in safety unto his woeful 

home, 
And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds 

are done in Rome. 
By this the flood of people was swollen from 

every side, 
And streets and porches round were filled with 

that o'erflowing tide ; 
And close around the body gathered a little 

train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the 

slain. 
They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cy- 
press crown, 



150 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her 

down. 
The face of Appiiis Claudius wore the Claudian 

scowl and sneer, 
And in the Claudian note he cried, " What doth 

this labble here 1 
Have they no crafts to mind at home, that hither- 
ward they stray ? 
Ho ! lictors, clear the market-place, and fetch the 

corpse away ! " 
Tlie voice of grief and fury till tlien had not been 

loud ; 
But a deep sullen murmur wandered among the 

crowd, 
Like the moaning noise that goes before the whirl- 
wind on the deep, 
Or the growl of a fierce watch-dog but half aroused 

from sleep. 
But when the lictors at that word, tall yeomen all 

and strong, 
Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, went down 

into the throng, 
Those old men say, who saw that day of sorrow 

and of sin. 
That in the Boman Forum was never such a 

din. 



VIRGINIA. 151 

The wailing, hooting, cursing, the howls of grief 

and hate. 
Were heard beyond the Pincian Hill, beyond the 

Latin Gate. 
But close around the body, where stood the little 

train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the 

slain, 
No cries were there, but teeth set fast, low whispers 

and black frowns. 
And breaking up of benches, and girding up of 

gowns. 
'Twas well the lictors might not pierce to where 

the maiden lay. 
Else surely had they been all twelve torn limb from 

limb that day. 
Right glad they were to struggle back, blood 

streaming from their heads. 
With axes all in splinters, and raiment all in 

shreds. 
Then Appius Claudius gnawed his lip, and the 

blood left his cheek ; 
And thrice he beckoned with his hand, and thrice 

he strove to speak ; 
And thrice the tossing Forum set up a frightful 

yell ; 



152 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

" See, see, thou dog ! what thou hast done ; and 

hide thy sliame in hell ! 
Thou that wouldst make our maidens slaves must 

first make slaves of men. 
Tribunes ! Hurrah for Tribunes ! Down with the 

wicked Ten ! " 
And straightway, thick as hailstones, came whizzing 

through the air 
Pebbles, and bricks, and potsherds, all round the 

curule chair : 
And upon Appius Claudius great fear and trem- 
bling came ; 
For never was a Claudius yet brave against aught 

but shame. 
Though the great houses love us not, we own, to do 

them right, 
That the great houses, all save one, have borne 

them w^ell in fight. 
Still Caius of Corioli, his triuuiplis and his 

wrongs, 
His vengeance and his mercy, live in our camp-fire 

songs. 
Beneath the yoke of Furius oft have Gaul and 

Tuscan bowed ; 
And Rome may bear the pride of him of whom 

herself is proud. 



VIRGINIA. 153 

But evermore a Claudius shrinks from a stncken 

field, 
And changes colour like a maid at sight of sword 

and shield. 
The Claudian triumphs all were won within the 

city towers ; 
The Claudian yoke was never pressed on any necks 

but ours. 
A Cossus, like a wild cat, springs ever at the 

face ; 
A Fabius rushes like a boar against the shouting 

chase ; 
But the vile Claudian litter, raging with currish 

spite, 
Still yelps and snaps at those who run, still runs 

from those who smite. 
So now 'twas seen of Appius. When stones began 

to fly, 
He shook, and crouched, and wrung his hands, and 

smote upon his thigh, 
*' Kind clients, honest lictors, stand by me in this 

fray ! 
Must I be torn in pieces? Home, home, the 

nearest way ! " 
While yet he spake, and looked around with a 

bewildered stare, 



154 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Four sturdy lictors put their necks beneath the 

curule chair ; 
And fourscore clients on the left^ and fourscore on 

the right, 
Arrayed themselves with swords and staves, and 

loins girt up for tight. 
But, though without or stafl" or sword, so furious 

was the throng. 
That scarce the train with might and main could 

bring their lord along. 
Twelve times the crowd made at him ; five times 

they seized his gown ; 
Small chance was his to rise again, if once they got 

him down : 
And sharper came the pelting ; and evermore the 

yell- 
" Tribunes ! we will have tribunes ! " — rose with a 

louder swell : 
And the chair tossed as tosses a bark with tattered 

sail 
When raves the Adriatic beneath an Eastern 

gale. 
When the Calabrian sea-marks are lost in clouds of 

spume, 
And the great Thunder-Cape has donned his veil 

of inky gloom. 



VIRGINIA. 155 

One stone hit Appius iii the mouth, and one be- 
neath the ear ; 
And ere he reached Mount Palatine, he swooned 

with pain and fear. 
His cursed head, that he was wont to hokl so high 

with pride, 
Kow, like a drunken man's, hung down, and 

swayed from side to side ; 
And when his stout retainers had brought him to 

his door, 
His face and neck were all one cake of filth and 

clotted gore. 
As Appius Claudius was that day, so may his 

grandson be ! 
God send Rome one such other sight, and send me 

there to see ! 



156 LAYS OF ANCIENT BOMB. 



THE PEOPHECY OF CAPYS. 



It can hardly be necessary to remind any reader 
that according to the popuhir tradition, Romulus, 
after he had slain his grand-uncle Amulius, and 
restored his grandfather Numitor, determined to 
quit Alba, the hereditary domain of the Sylvian 
princes, and to found a new city. The Gods, it 
was added, vouchsafed the clearest signs of the 
favour with which they regarded the enterprise, 
and of the high destinies reserved for the young 
colony. 

This event was likely to be a favourite theme of 
the old Latin minstrels. They would naturally 
attribute the project of Romulus to some divine 
intimation of the power and prosperity which it 
was decreed that his city should attain. They 
would probably introduce seers foretelling the 
victories of unborn Consuls and Dictators, and the 
last great victory would generally occupy the most 
conspicuous place in the prediction. There is 



THE PBOPHECY OF CAPYS. l57 

nothing strange in the supposition that the poet 
who was employed to celebrate the first great 
triumph of the Romans over the Greeks might 
throw his song of exultation into this form. 

The occasion was' one likely to excite the 
strongest feelings of national pride. A great out- 
rage had been followed by a great retribution. 
Seven years before this time Lucius Postumius 
Megillus, who sprang from one of the noblest 
houses of Rome, and liad been thrice Consul, was 
sent ambassador to Tarentum, with charge to 
demand reparation for grievous injuries. The 
Tarentines gave him audience in their theatre, 
where he addressed them in such Greek as he 
could command, which, we may well believe, was 
not exactly such as Cineas would have spoken. 
An exquisite sense of the ridiculous belonged to 
the Greek character ; and closely connected with 
this faculty was a strong propensity to flip[)ancy 
and impertinence. When Postumius placed an 
accent wrong, his hearers burst into a laugh. 
When he remonstrated, they hooted him, and 
called him barbarian ; and at length hissed him off 
the stage as if he had been a bad actor. As the 
grave Roman retired, a buffoon who, from his 
constant drunkenness, was nicknamed the Pint-pot, 



V>S LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

aiiie up witli gestures of tlie grossest indecency, 
and bespattered the senatorial gown with tilth. 
Postumiiis turned round to the multitude, and 
held up the gown, as if appealing to the universal 
law of nations. The sight only increased the in- 
solence of the Tarentines. They clapped their 
hands, and set up a shout of laughter which shook 
the theatre. " Men of Tareutum." said Postu- 
mius, " it will take not a little blood to wash this 
L'own." 

Rome, in consequence of this insult, declared 
war against the Tarentines. The Tarentines 
sought for allies beyond the Ionian Sea. Pyrrhus, 
king of Epirus, came to their help with a large 
army ; and, for the first time, the two great 
nations of antiquity were fairly matched against 
each other. 

The fame of Greece in arms, as ^ve\\ as in arts, 
was then at the height. Half a century earlier, 
the career of Alexander had excited the admiration 
and terror of all nations, from the Ganges to the 
Pillars of Hercules. Royal houses, founded by 
Macedonian captains, still reigned at Antioch and 
Alexandria. That barbarian warriors, led by 
barbarian chiefs, should win a pitched battle 
against Greek valour guided by Greek science. 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 15J> 

seemed as incredible . as it would now seem that 
the Burmese or the Siamese should, in the open 
plain, put to flight an equal number of the best 
English troops. The Tarentines M^ere convinced 
that their countrymen were irresistible in war ; 
and this conviction had emboldened them to treat 
with the grossest indignity one whom they re- 
garded as the representative of an inferior race. 
Of the Greek generals then living, Pyrrhus was 
indisputably the first. Among the troops who 
were trained in the Greek discipline, his Epirotes 
ranked high. His expedition to Italy was a 
turning point in the history of the world. He 
found there a people who, far inferior to the 
Athenians and Corinthians in the line arts, in the 
speculative sciences, and in all the refinements of 
life, were the best soldiers on the face of the earth. 
Their arms, their gradations of rank, their order 
of battle, their method of intrenchment, were all 
of Latian origin, and had all been gradually brought 
near to perfection, not by the study of foreion 
models, but by the genius and experience of many 
generations of great native commanders. The 
first words which broke from the king, when his 
practised eye had surveyed the Koman encamp- 
ment, were full of meaning : — " These barbarians," 



Ib'U LAYS OF AXCIENT ROME. 

he said, "have nothing harharous in their military 
arrangements." He was at lirst victorious ; for 
his own talents were superior to those of the 
captains who were opposed to him ; and tlie 
Romans were not prepared for the onset of the 
elephants of the East, which were then for the 
first time seen in Italy — moving mountains, with 
long snakes for hands. But the victories of the 
Epirotes were fiercely disputed, dearly purchased, 
and altogether unprofitable. At length, Manius 
Curius Dentatus, who had in his first Consulship 
won two triumphs, was again placed at the head of 
the Roman Commonwealth, and sent to encounter 
the invaders. A great battle was fought near 
Bene vent um. Pyrrhus was completely defeated. 
He repassed the sea ; and the world learned, with 
amazement, that a people had been discovered, 
who, in fair fighting, were superior to the best 
troops that had been drilled on the system of 
Parmenio and Antigonus. 

The conquerors had a good right to exult in 
their success ; for their glory was all their own. 
They had not learned from their enemy how to 
conquer him. It was with their own national arms, 
and in their own national battle-array, that they had 
overcome weapons and tactics long believed to be 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 161 

invincible. The pilum and the broadsword had 
vanquished the Macedonian spear. The legion 
had broken the Macedonian phalanx. Even the 
elephants, when the surprise produced by their 
first appearance was over, could cause no disorder 
in the steady yet flexible battalions of Rome. 

It is said by Florus, and may easily be believed, 
that the triumph far surpassed in magnificence any 
that Rome had previously seen. The only spoils 
which Paparius Cursor and Fabius Maximus could 
exhibit were flocks and herds, waggons of rude 
structure, and heaps of spears and helmets. But 
now, for the first time, the riches of Asia and the 
arts of Greece adorned a Roman pageant. Plate, 
fine stuff's, costly furniture, rare animals^ exquisite 
paintings and sculptures, formed part of the pro- 
cession. At the banquet would be assembled a 
crowd of warriors and statesmen, among whom 
Manius Curius Dentatus would take the highest 
room. Caius Fabricius Luscinus, then, after two 
Consulships and two triumphs Censor of the Com- 
monwealth, would doubtless occupy a place of 
honour at the board. In situations less con- 
spicuous probably lay some of those who were, a 
few years later, the terror of Carthage ; Caius 
Duilius, the founder of the maritime greatness of 



I(j2 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

his country ; Marcus Atilius Regulus, who owet] 
to defeat a renown far higher than that which he 
had derived from his victories ; and Caius Lutatius 
(Jatulus, who, while suffering from a grievous 
wound, fought the great battle of the ^^gates, and 
brought the first Punic war to a triumphant close. 
It is impossible to recount the names of these 
eminent citizens without reflecting that they were 
all, without exception, Plebeians, and would, but 
for the ever-memorable struggle maintained by Caius 
Licinius and Lucius Sextius, have been doomed to 
hide in obscurity, or to waste in civil broils, the ca- 
pacity and energy which prevailed against Pyrrhus 
and Harailcar. 

On such a day we may suppose that the patriotic 
enthusiasm of a Latin poet would vent itself in 
reiterated shouts of lo triumphs^ such as were 
uttered by Horace on a far less exciting occasion, 
and in boasts resembling those which Virgil put 
into the mouth of Anchises. The superiority of 
some foreign nations, and especially of the Greeks, 
in the lazy arts of peace, would be admitted with 
disdainful candour ; but pre-eminence in all the 
qualities which fit a people to subdue and govern 
mankind would be claimed for the Romans. 

The following lay belongs to the latest age of 



THE PROPHECY OF OAPYS. 16'-J 

Latin ballad-poetry. Naevius and Livius Andro- 
nicus were probably among the children whose 
mothers held them up to see the chariot of Curiiis 
go by. The minstrel who sang on that day might 
possibly have lived to read the first hexameters of 
Ennius, and to see the first comedies of Plautii ^. 
His poem, as might be expected, shows a much 
wider acquaintance with the geography, manners, 
and productions of remote nations, than would 
have been found in compositions of the age of 
Camillus. But he troubles himself little about 
dates, and having heard travellers talk with ad- 
miration of the Colossus of Rhodes, and of the 
structures and gardens with which the Macedonian 
kings of Syria had embellished their residence on 
the banks of the Orontes, he has never thought of 
inquiring whether these things existed in the age 
of Romulus. 



164 LAYS OF AJSCIENT liOJSlB. 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 

A LAY SUNG AT THE BANQUET IN THE CAPITOL, 
ON THE DAY WHEREON MANIUS CURIUS DEN- 
TATUS, A SECOND TIME CONSUL, TRIUMPHED 
OVER KING PYRRHUS AND THE TARENTINES, 
IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCCLXXIX. 



I. 

Now slain is King Amulius, 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 

On the throne of Aventine. 
Slain is the Pontiff Gamers, 

Who spake the words of doom 
" The children to the Tiber ; 

The mother to the tomb." 

XL 

In Alba's lake no fisher 
His net to-day is flinging : 

On the dark rind of Alba's oaks 
To-day no axe is ringing : 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPTS. 165 

The yoke hangs o'er the maiiger : 

The scythe lies in the hay : 
Through all the Alban villages 

No work is done to-day. 

III. 
And every Alban burgher 

Hath donned his whitest gown ; 
And every head in Alba 

Weareth a poplar crown ; 
And every Alban door-post 

With boughs and flowers is gay : 
For to-day the dead are living; 

The lost are found to-day. 

IV. 

They were doomed by a bloody king : 

They were doomed by a lying priest : 
They were cast on the raging flood : 

They were tracked by the raging beast : 
Raging beast and raging flood 

Alike have spared the prey ; 
And to-day the dead are living : 

The lost are found to-day. 

V. 

The troubled river knew them, 
And smoothed his yellow foam, 



166 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And gently rocked the cradle 

That bore the fate of Rome. 
The ravening she-wolf knew them, 

And licked them o'er and o'er, 
And gave them of her own fierce milk 

Eich with raw flesh and gore. 
Twenty winters, twenty springs, 

Since then have rolled away ; 
And to-day the dead are living : 

The lost are found to-day. 

VI. 

Blithe it was to see the twins, 

Right goodly youths and tall, 
Marching from Alba Longa 

To their old grandsire's halL 
Along their path fresh garlands 

Are hung from ti-ee to tree : 
Before them stride the pipers, 

Piping a note of glee. 

VII. 

On the right goes Romulus, 
With anns to the elbows red, 

And in his hand a broadsword, 
And on the blade a head — 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 167 

A head in an iron helmet, 

With horsehair hanging down, 
A bliaggy head, a swarthy head, 

Fixed in a ghastly frown — 
The head of King Amulius, 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 

On the throne of Aventine. 

VIII. 

On the left side goes Remus, 

With wrists and fingers red. 
And in his hand a boar-spear, 

And on the point a head — 
A wrinkled head and aged. 

With silver beard and hair, 
And holy fillets round it. 

Such as the pontiffs wear — 
The head of ancient Gamers, 

Who spake the words of doom : 
*' The children to the Tiber ; 

The mother to the tomb." 

IX. 

Two and two behind the twins 
Their trusty comrades go, 



168 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Four and forty valiant men, 

With club, and axe, and bow. 
On each side every hamlet 

Pours forth its joyous crowd, 
Shouting lads and baying dogs 

And children laughing loud, 
And old men weeping fondly 

As Khea's boys go by, 
And maids who shriek to see the heads. 

Yet, shrieking, press more nigh. 

X. 

So they marched along the lake ; 

They marched by fold and stall, 
By corn-field and by vineyard, 

Unto the old man's hall. 

XI. 

In the hall-gate sate Capys, 

Capys, the sightless seer ; 
From head to foot he trembled 

As Romulus drew near. 
And up stood stiff his thin white hair 

And his blind eyes Hashed fire : 
•' Hail ! foster child of the wondrous nurse I 

Hail ! son of the wondrous sire ! 



i 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPT8. 169 
XII. 

"But thou — what dost thou here 

lu the old man's peaceful hall 1 
What doth the eagle in the coop, 

The bison in the stall 1 
Our corn fills many a garner ; 

Our vines clasp many a tree ; 
Our flocks are white on many a hill. 

But these are not for thee. 

XIII. 

**ror thee no treasure ripens 

In the Tartessian mine : 
For thee no ship brings precious bales 

Across the Libyan brine : 
Thou shalt not drink from amber ; 

Thou shalt not rest on down. ; 
Arabia shall not steep thy locks, 

Nor Sidon tinge thy gown. 

XIV. 

" Leave gold and myrrh and jewels, 

Kich table and soft bed, 
To them who of man's seed are bom, 

Whom woman's milk hath fed. 



170 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Thou wast not made for lucre, 

For pleasure, nor for rest ; 
Thou, that art sprung from the War-god's 
loins, 

And hast tugged at the she-wolfs breast. 



XV. 

" From sunrise unto sunset 

All earth shall hear thy fame : 
A glorious city thou shalt build. 

And name it by thy name : 
And there, unquenched througli ages. 

Like Vesta's sacred fire, 
Shall live the spirit of thy nurse, 

The spirit of thy sire. 

XVI. 

* The ox toils through the furrow, 

Obedient to the goad ; 
The patient ass, up flinty paths, 

Plods with his weary load ; 
With whine and bound the spaniel 

His master's whistle hears ; 
And the sheep yields her patiently 

To the loud clashing shears. 



THE PROPHECY OP CAPYS. 171 

XVII. 

But thy nurse will hear no master ;. 

Thy nurse will bear no load ; 
And woe to them that shear her^ 

And woe to them that goad 1 
When all the pack, loud baying, 

Her bloody lair surrounds, 
She dies in silence, biting hard, 

Amidst the dying hounds. 

, XVIII. 

" Pomona loves the orchard ; 

And Liber loves the vine ; 
And Pales loves the straw-built shed 

Warm with the breath of kine ; 
And Venus loves the whispers 

Of plighted youth and maid, 
In April's ivory moonlight 

Beneath the chestnut shade. 

XIX. 

" But thy father loves the clashing 

Of broadsword and of shield : 
He loves to drink the steam that reeks 

From the fresh battle-field ; 



172 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

He smiles a smile more dreadful 
Than his own dreadful frown, 

When he sees the thick black cloud oi 
smoke 
Go up from the conquered town. 

XX. 

* And such as is the War-god, 

The author of thy line, 
And such as she who suckled thee, 

Even such be thou and thine. 
Leave to the soft Campanian 

His baths and his perfumes ; 
Leave to the sordid race of Tyre 

Their dyeing- vats and looms : 
Leave to the sons of Carthage 

The rudder and the oar : 
Leave to the Greek his marble Nymphs 

And scrolls of wordy lore. 

XXI. 

** Thine, Roman, is the pilum : 

Roman, the sword is thine, 
The even trench, the bristling mound. 

The legion's ordered line j 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 173 

And thine the wheels of triumph, 
Wliich with their laurelled train 

Move sloM^ly lip the shouting streets 
To Jove's eternal fane. 

XXII. 

" Beneath thy yoke the Volscian 

Shall vail his lofty brow : 
Soft Capua's curled revellers 

Before thy chairs shall bow : 
The Lucumoes of Arnus 

Shall quake thy rods to see ; 
And the proud Samnite's heart of steel 

Shall yield to only thee. 

XXIII. 

"The Gaul shall come against thee 
From the land of snow and niirht : 

Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies 
To the raven and the kite. 

XXIV. 

«* The Greek shall come against thee, 

The conqueror of the East. 
Beside him stalks to battle 

The huge earth-shaking beast, 



174i LAYS OF AXCIENT ROME. 

Tlie boast on whom the castle 

With all its guards doth stand, # 
The boast who hath between his eyes 

The serpent for a hand. 
First march the bold Epirotes, 

Wedi2:ed close with shield and spear; 
And the ranks of false Tarentum 

Are glittt^ring in the rear. 

XXV. 

The ranks of false Tarentum 

Like hunted sheep shall fly : 
In vain the bold Epirotes 

Shall round their standards die : 
And A Pennine's grey vultures 

Shall have a noble feast 
On the fat and the eyes 

Of the huge earth-shaking beast. 

XXVI. 

" Hurrah ! for the good weapons 
That keep the War-god's land. 

Hurrah ! for Rome's stout pilum 
In a stout Roman hand. 

Hurrah ! for Rome's shoi-t broadsword. 
That through the thick array 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 

Of levelled spears and serried shit4ds 
% Hews deep its gory way. 

XXVII. 

" Hurrah ! for the great triumph 

That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the wan captives 

That pass in endless file. 
Ho ! bold Epirotes, whither 

Hath the Eed King ta'en flight ] 
Ho ! dogs of false Tarentum, 

Is not the gown washed white 1 

XXVIII. 

** Hurrah ! for the great triumph 

That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the rich dye of Tyr^ 

And the fine web of Nile, 
The helmets gay with plumage 

Torn fi'om the pheasant's wings, 
The belts set thick with staruy gems 

That shone on Indian kings, 
The urns of massy silver, 

The goblets rough with gold. 
The many-coloured tablets bright 

With loves and wars of old 



17*) LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

The stone that breathes and struggles, 
The brass that seems to speak ; — 

Such cunning they who dwell on high 
Have given unto the Greek. 

XXIX. 

•' Hurrah ! for Manius Curius, 

The bravest son of Rome, 
Thrice in utmost need sent forth, 

Thrice drawn in triumph home. 
Weave, weave, for Manius Curius 

The third embroidered gown : 
Make ready the third lofty car, 

And twine the third green crown ; 
And yoke the steeds of Kosea 

With necks like a bended bow, 
And deck the bull, Mevania's bull, 

The bull as white as snow. 

xxx. 

•* Blestj and thrice blest the Roman 
Who sees Rome's brightest day, 

Who sees that long victorious pomp 
Wind down the Sacred Way, 

And through the bellowing Forum, 
And round the Suppliant's Grove, 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 177 

Up to the everlasting gates 
Of Capitolian Jove. 

XXXI. 

" Then where, o*er two bright heavens 

The towers of Corinth frown ; 
Where the gigantic King of Day 

On his own Rhodes looks down ; 
Where soft Orontes murmurs 

Beneath the laurel shades ; 
Where Nile reflects the endless length 

Of dark-red colonnades ; 
Where in the still deep water, 

Sheltered from waves and blasts, 
Bristles the dusky forest 

Of Byrsa's thousand masts ; 
Where fur-clad hunters wander 

Amidst the northern ice ; 
Where through the sand of morning-land 

The camel bears the spice ; 
Where Atlas flings his shadow 

Far o'er the western foam, 
Shall be great fear on all who hear 

The mighty name of Rome." 



IVEY, AND THE ARMADA. 



' 



IVRT: 

A SONG OP THE HUGUENOTS. 



Kow glorj to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all 
glories are ! 

And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of 
Navarre ! 

Now let there be the merry sound of music and of 
dance, 

Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, oh 
pleasant land of France ! 
! And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city 

of the waters, 
, Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourn- 

ing daughters. 

As thou werii constant in our ills, be joyous in our 

joy, 

For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought 

thy walls annoy. 
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! a single field hath turned the 

chance of war, 
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! for Ivry, and Henry of 

Navarre. 



l^J IVRY. 

Oh ! how our hearts were beating, when, at the 

daAvn of day, 
We saw the army of the League drawn out in long 

array ; 
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel 

peers. 
And Api)enzers stout infantry, and Egmont's 

Flemish spears. 
There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses 

of our land ; 
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon 

in his hand : 
And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's 

empurpled flood. 
And good Coligny's hoary hair all dabbled with his 

blood ; 
And we cried unto the living God, who rules the 

fate of war. 
To fight for His own holy name, and Henry of 

Navarre. 
The King is come to marshal us, in all his armour 

drest, 
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his 

gallant crest. 
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his 

eye; 



IVRY. 183 

He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was 

stern and high. 
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from 

wing to wing, 
Down all our line, a deafening shout, " God save 

our Lord the King ! " 
" And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well 

he may. 
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody 

fray, 
Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst 

the ranks of war, 
And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of 

Navarre." 



Hurrah ! the foes are moving. Hark to the 
mingled din 

Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roar- 
ing culverin. 

The fiery Duke is pricking fast across St. Andre's 
plain, 

With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and 
Almayne. 

Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of 
France, 



184 rvBY. 

Charge for the golden lilies, — upon them with the 

lance. 
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand 

spears in rest, 
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the 

snow-white crest ; 
And in they burst, and on they rushed, while like 

a guiding star. 
Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of 

Navarre. 



NoAv, God be praised, the day is ours. Mayenne 

hath turned his rein. 
DAumale hath cried for quarter. The Flemish 

count is slain. 
Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a 

Biscay gale ; 
The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, 

and cloven mail. 
And then we thought on vengeance, and, all along 

our van, 
"Remember St. Bartholomew!" was passed from 

man to man. 
But out spake gentle Henry, " No Fienchman is 

my foe; 



IVET. 135 

Down, down with every foreigner, but let your 

brethren go." 
Oh ! was there ever such a knight, in friendship 

or in war, 
As our Sovereign Lord, King Henry, the soldier 

of Navarre ? 

Right well fought all the Frenchmen who fought 

for France to-day ; 
And many a lordly banner God gave them for a 

prey ; 
But we of the religion have borne us best in fight ; 
And the good lord of Rosny has ta'en the comet 

white. 
Our own true Maximilian the cornet white hath 

ta'en. 
The cornet white with crosses black, the flag of 

false Lorraine. 
Up with it high ; unfurl it wide ; that all the host 

may know 
How God hath humbled the proud house which 

wrought His church such woe. 
Then on the ground, while trumpets sound their 

loudest point of war, 
Fling the red shreds, a footcloth meet for Henry 

of Navarre. 



llo! maidens of Vienna; Ho! matrons of Lucerne; 
AVeep, weep, and rend your hair for those who 

never shall return. 
Ho ! Philip, send, for charity, thy Mexican pis- 
toles, 
That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy 

poor spearmen's souls. 
Ho ! gallant nobles of the League, look that your 

arms be bright ; 
Ho ! burghers of Saint Genevieve, keep watch and 

ward to-night. 
Por our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God 

hath raised the slave. 
And mocked the counsel of the wise, and the 

valour of the brave. 
Then glory to His holy name, from whom all 

glories are ; 
And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of 

Navarre. 



THE ARMADA. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's 

praise ; 
I tell of the thrice-famous deeds she wrought in 

ancient days, 
When that great fleet invincible against her bore 

in vain 
The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of 

Spain. 

It was about the lovely close of a warm summer 

day, 
There came a gallant merchant-ship full sail to 

Plymouth Bay ; 
Her crew had seen Castile's black fleet, beyond 

Aurigny's Isle, 
At earliest twilight, onj the waves, lie heaying 

many a mile. 
At sunrise she escaped their van, \y God's especial 

grace ; 
And the tall Pinta, till the noon had held her close 

in chase. 



188 THE ARMADA. 

Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along 

the wall ; 
The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecumbe's 

lofty haU ; 
Many a light fishing jbark put [out to ]pry along the 

coast, 
And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland 

many a post. 
With his white hair unbonneted, the stout old 

sheriff comes ; 
Behind him march the halberdiers ; before him 

sound the drums ; 
His yeomen round the market cross make clear an 

ample space ; 
For there behoves him to set up the standard of 

Her Grace. 
And haughtily the trumpets peal, and gaily dance 

the bells, 
As slow upon the labouring wind the royal blazon 

swells. 
Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up his ancient 

crown, 
And underneath his deadly paw treads the gay 

lilies down. 
So stalked he when he turned to flight, on that 

fanu'.l Piofuxl field, 



THE ARMADA, 189 

Bohemia's plume, and Genoa's bow, and Csesar's 

eagle shield. 
So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath he turned 

to bay, 
And crushed and torn beneath his claws the 

princely hunters lay. 
Ho ! strike the flagstaff deep, Sir Knight : ho ! 

scatter flowers, fair maids : 
Ho ! gunners, fire a loud salute : ho ! gallants, 

draw your blades : 
Thou sun, shine on her joyously ; ye breezes, waft 

her wide ; 
Our glorious semper eadem, the banner of our 

pride. 
The freshening breeze of eve unfurled that banner's 

massy fold ; 
The parting gleam of sunshine kissed that haughty 

scroll of gold ; 
Night sank upon the dusky beach, and on the 

purple sea, 
Such night in England ne'er had been, nor e'er 

again shall be. 
From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to 

Milford Bay, 
That time of slumber was as bright and busy as 

the day ; 



190 THE ARMADA. 

For swift to east and swift to west the gliastly 
war-Hame spread, 

High on St. Michael's Mount it shone : it shone on 
Beachy Head. 

Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each 
southern shire, 

Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twink- 
ling points of fire. 

The fisher left his skiff to rock on Taniar's glitter- 
ing waves, 

The rugged miner poured to war from Mendip's 
sunless caves : 

O'er Longleat's towers, o'ei Cranbourne's oaks, the 
fiery herald flew : 

He roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers 
of Beaulieu. 

Right sharp and quick the bells all night rang out 
from Bristol town, 

And ere the day three hundred horse had met on 
* Clifton down ; 

The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into 
the night, 

And saw o'erhanging JRichmond Hill the streak of 
blood-red light, 

Then bugle's note and cannon's roar the death-like 
silence broke, 



THE ARMADA. 191 

And with one start, and with one cry, tlie royal 

city woke. 
At once on all her stately gates arose the answering 

fires ; 
At once tlie wild alarum clashed from all her 

reeling spires ; 
From all the batteries of the Tower pealed loud the 

voice of fear ; 
And all the thousand masts of Thames sent back 

a louder cheer ; 
And from the farthest wards was heard the rush 

of hurrying feet, 
And the broad streams of pikes and flags rushed 

down each roaring street ; 
And broader still became the blaze, and louder 

still the din, 
As fast from every village round the horse came 

spurring in : 
And eastward straight from wild Blackheath the 

warlike errand went, <^ 

And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant 

squires of Kent. 
Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills flew those 

bright couriers forth ; 
High on bleak Hampstead's swarthy moor they 

started for the north ; 



192 THIS JUSMADA. 

And on, and on, without a pause, untired they 

bounded stiJl : 
All night from tower to tower they sprang ; the\ 

sprang from hill to hill : 
Till the proud Peak unfurled the flag o'er Darwin's 

rocky dales. 
Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy 

hills of Wales, 
Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Mal- 
vern's lonely height. 
Till streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin's 

crest of light, 
Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Ely's 

stately fane, 
And tower and hamlet rose in arms o'er all the 

boundless plain ; 
Till Belvoir's lordly terraces tlie sign to Lincoln sent, 
And Lincoln sped the message on o'er the wide 

vale of Trent ; 
Tilf Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt's 

embattled pile. 
And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers 

of Carlisle. 



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and a trial is convinc- 
ing- of its merits. 

I F. M. Johnson, M. D, 
July I, 1885. 



^KINTED PAPEE, or that con- 
(Q: tammg" chemicals incident to 
the ordinary process of manufac- 
ture, is a " cause of Hemon-hoids." 
The." STANDARD » Brand is not 
medicated, but is free from delete- 
nous substances. 
Two 2,000-Sbeet RoUs 
and NTCKLE FIXTITRE dehvered 
FREE any^vhere^in the United 
States on receipt of 

-s^ONE DOLLAR'^ 



ir *<% AmMm.,^*.-^ '■■ "■■'-p"'' 'WithExpres3Companie3 enabl3 us 
llfd T c&n Ri?fl*^-S^n^^ Nickel Fixture, or Eight Stand- 
lFiitiJ??nl^g|4tg?^3^^° '^^'"^ Medicated a^d NickeJ 



He^o^h^o^fl^S?'^^^^^^^^^^ 

mfnn^°^^^ attending the use of oiSment in S^lS 
Pri(^^^^ Ron nf^^'fen^l'i^^^^*^ ^?d ^eat Poctet Case, - $1.00 
"^""^^5^^^" ^ *^- ^^'^^ States, on receipl^^t 




The Popular Short Line 

BETWEEN CHICAGO A1V6 

MILWAUKEE, DULUTH, OMAHA, 

MADiSOM, DES M9INES, DENVER, 

ST. PAUL, SIOUX CITY, SAN FRANCISCO, 

MINNEAPOLIS, COUNCIL BLUFFS, PORTLAND, ORE. 

^T'hrougli past Express I'rains-s^- 

Equipped with all known appliances for the SAFETY, COMFORT 
and LUXURY of its passengers. 

Its Through Trains make close Union Depot connections with trains 
of branch or connecting tints for all points of Interest in 

lliUNOIS. IOWA, NEBRASKA, WISCONSIN. 

MINNESOTA NOBTHBRN MXCHIQAN. 

DAKOTA, COIiORADO, 

WYOMING. MONTANA, IDASO. T7TAK. ORBOON. 

WASHINOTON TERRITORY, 

CAXIFORNIA and BRITISH COIiUMBIA. 

It is the Tourists' Favorite Route to all points of Interest In the 
ENCHANTED SUMMER LAND and HUNTING and FISHING RESORTS 
of the NORTH and NORTHWEST. 

THE ONLY ROUTE TO THE BLA6K HILLS. 

The famous ' ' SHORT LINE LIMITED " — the fast train — elegant 
in all its uppointtnentSf runs between Chicago, St. Paul and 
Minneapolis, via 

Tla.e 3::Tortli.-"'s:^7"ester3:i. 

All Agents sell Tickets via this Route. 



JTew York Office. 409 Broadway. Chicago Offlce, «2 Clark Street. 

Boston Offlce, 6 State Street. Omaha Offlce, 1411 Farnam Street 

Minneapolis Offloe, 13 Nicollet House. St. Faul Offlce, 159 East Third St. 
Denver Offlce, 8 "Windsor Hotel Block. Milwaukee Offlce, 102 Wlwonain St. 
San Francisco Offlce, 8 New Montgomery Street. v 

R. S. HAIR, General Passenper Agent, CHICAGO, ILL. 



